


Hadrian's Curse

by oldenuf2nb



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Deputy Head Auror Ron Weasley, Divorced Astoria Greengrass & Draco Malfoy, Divorced Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley, Getting Back Together, Head Auror Harry Potter, Headmistress Hermione Granger, M/M, Misunderstandings, Old Magic, Past Affair, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Past Relationship(s), Quidditch Player Ginny Weasley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:14:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24361909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldenuf2nb/pseuds/oldenuf2nb
Summary: When rumors about Albus Potter and his best friend begin to circulate at Hogwarts, Harry Potter finds you can never really escape your past.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 46
Kudos: 704
Collections: HD Mpreg 2020





	Hadrian's Curse

**Author's Note:**

> This is a self prompt I've wanted to write for a while, and now seemed to be the perfect time. Much love to the ever patient mod for putting up with my pokiness, and to my wonderful beta, SC. Thank you for continuing to make my stuff shine, love.

Harry Potter stalked down the long hall between the Minister's office and his own, so angry he wouldn't have been surprised if there was steam coming out of his ears. He passed several people, all of whom took one look at the thundercloud that was his expression and scurried out of his way. 

He knew there were budget constrictions all over the Ministry at the moment, but all of those departments weren't tasked with keeping the peace for the wizarding population of an entire bloody country, either. His staff of Aurors was already over-worked and under-paid. The idea that the budget committee actually expected him to cut hours so no one worked any over-time was infuriating, and he ground his teeth rather than spit out every expletive in the dictionary. 

He arrived back at his spare, under decorated office without acknowledging a soul, and was tempted to do the same with his office manager. The only thing that kept him from it was the knowledge he'd pay for the next month if he did. Augustina Wetherington was probably seventy five, (he could look up her age on her personnel file, but if she ever found out he'd done it he'd be up a famous creek without a paddle). She had steel wool grey hair tightly curling around her no nonsense face, and her gray wool skirt, sensible shoes and black cardigan corresponded with the scenery. The only thing about her that could be called remotely fussy was the cameo pin that adorned the collar of her white blouse. 

She certainly couldn't be called handsome; probably never had been, but her intelligence and organizational skills were still right on point. She didn't suffer fools gladly, which was one of the areas where they agreed. She'd also told him up front she hadn't tolerated tantrums from his predecessor, and she wouldn't tolerate them from a man fifty plus years his junior. Harry, having three teenagers, understood the sentiment completely. Even as brassed off as he was, he'd swallow it while dealing with Augie.

"Anything I need to address, Augustina?"

She looked up, black eyes assessing his mood at one glance. "Shall I warn Minister Shacklebolt's assistant that he might want to keep his eyes peeled for an assassin?"

Harry snorted. "Tempting, but no. I'd never be able to keep it to myself, and I've no desire to spend the rest of my life in Azkaban."

"You truly do lack a poker face. You should work on that, Head Auror."

"Duly noted." He gave her a wry smile. "Anything pressing?"

She picked up a stack of memos from the corner of her desk, holding them out to him. "The only one that might be pressing is on the top. Your ex-wife seems quite anxious to get in touch with you, although she refused to tell me why." She sniffed, and Harry fought a grin. Augie, and he would _never_ call her that to her face even though Ron did, had never cared for Gin. She thought that 'the wife of the youngest Head Auror ever' should be more understanding about the long hours put in at the Ministry. Ginny told Harry half way through his first year as Head Auror she hadn't signed on to raise their children alone or to be celibate. The moment Lils climbed on the train for Hogwarts, Ginny had divorce documents delivered to his office. He couldn't even really blame his ex, but Augie's expression when he told her had 'good riddance' written all over it. 

The fact he and Gin were better friends and parents since the divorce said a lot about their marriage. Molly justified their separation by saying 'they'd been too young', (which they had) and that the war had left too much heartache behind. That was true, too, but there was more to it than that. The only job Harry ever really considered was being an Auror, and he was damned good at it. He'd loved Gin, and he loved the kids, but he was Head Auror the way she was a Quidditch player; to the marrow of his bones. 

He'd moved up through the ranks not just because he was 'Harry Potter'; if anything, his famous name was a disadvantage. He was young, and criminal's solicitors always assumed he made mistakes. But his instincts for chasing down dark wizards were almost always spot on. His record of arrests that went all of the way through to conviction was the best of the entire division, even now that he spent most of his time behind a desk. His job made him feel successful as nothing else did, surely not being a husband. 

He knew he hadn't been great at that. He probably never should have got married at all; he started noticing his body's reaction to a nice male arse once the war was over. Still, he wanted the whole domestic package; the wife, the family, all of the things he'd been denied growing up. And Gin wanted to be Mrs Harry Potter; she made no secret of that fact. Unfortunately, it hadn't seemed to really work out for either of them. She'd cheated with the occasional passing Quidditch player, and it probably should have bothered him more than it did. He'd cheated exactly once, early in their marriage, and fallen hard. The affair lasted two weeks then ended abruptly; Ginny turned up pregnant with Al and Harry returned home. He'd never been tempted to cheat again. Harry didn't commit adultery lightly; he fell in love, a love that didn't fade over time. And he and Gin still didn't make it.

Harry stared down at the message slip in his hand, his brow furrowed. He'd just talked to Gin the day before yesterday; Jamie was in need of more dosh at Uni, and she'd paid out as much as she could. Harry had no problem adding galleons to his son's account, because after his wild hair days at Hogwarts, he'd really turned things around. His grades were good, and he wasn't drinking away his weekends. So he couldn't think of a reason Gin needed to talk to him 'as soon as possible', unless it had something to do with one of the younger kids. A shiver of disquiet worked its way down his spine. Albus was Seeker on the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, and Lils was bound and determined to make the Gryffindor team as a Chaser at the beginning of winter term. She'd been spending most of her afternoons on a broom and anytime his kids spent that much time in the air, accidents were inevitable. 

"Thank you, Augustina. I'd like to not be disturbed for the next bit."

"Of course, Mr Potter." She gave him a concerned look and Harry tried for a reassuring smile, but could tell from her expression he failed. He walked into his office and closed the door.

One of the perks of being Head Auror was that his office was connected to the Floo network. There was a huge ancient rock fireplace on one wall, and rumour had it that it dated back to the time of Merlin. Harry didn't really care; it was as handy in the fall and winter for warmth as it was for travel from the Ministry to his flat across town. He grabbed a handful of Floo powder from the masonry bowl on the mantle, withdrew his wand from the holster strapped across his chest, and lit the firewood already laid in the hearth. The flames licked around the dry wood, doubling in size as he tossed in the grainy powder, flaring bright fluorescent green. 

"Ginny Potter," he announced softly. His office was warded against listening devices of any kind, including the Animagus variety. Harry made very sure of that after dealing with all of Skeeter's divergent forms. He trusted Augie implicitly; it was almost everyone else working at the Ministry he didn't trust. There had been several instances of avid ears when he'd been younger and not as careful, blind items turning up in the _Prophet_ that made him cautious bordering on paranoid. Ron complained regularly about being unable to access his office. As his Deputy Head he had reason to complain, Harry supposed. He still wouldn't reset his wards.

A rush of breeze moved his fringe as he knelt on the hearth, watching the odd tornado-like motion within the flames. Moments later it stopped and Harry could see the living room of the house he and Gin had purchased together in Ottery St Catchpole before the kids were born. Across the room Ginny was standing before an antique mirror, her back to him, filling in her nearly invisible brows with a small makeup pencil. 

"Hey, Gin."

She met his eyes in the reflection, and her smile warmed him. 

"Hey, you. Can you come through for a couple? I can offer a cup of coffee."

She knew he was addicted to the caffeine laced beverage, especially the way she made it. He'd often teased he could walk on her coffee.

"I'll let Augie know. One sec." She made a face; she didn't like Augie any more than his elderly assistant liked her. He opened his door and leaned around the frame. "I'm going to step out for a few."

Augustina glanced up at the clock on the wall, pulling Harry's eyes to it. It was after four.

"I'm leaving in a few," she said. "If anyone is looking for you after that, they can come back tomorrow."

Harry gave her a quick smile. "Thank you. I'll bring you a caramel macchiato in the morning." It was her only vice, as far as Harry was aware.

She arched a brow. "I'll hold you to that."

"Oh, I know." He pulled back into his office and closed the door, then crossed to the still open Floo and leaned down to step through.

oooOOOooo

Draco Malfoy sat in an over-stuffed chair next to the fire in his private sitting room, looking through that evening's edition of the _'Daily Prophet'_. It had actually been a very nice day, but evenings always felt cool inside of the Manor, at least to him. He told himself often he'd only kept the old pile of rocks for Scorpius.

Scorpius was a good boy, a good student, and he could logically expect to inherit everything Draco had, but he wasn't sure the boy would want the Manor. Draco still wasn't completely sure _he_ wanted it, and yet here he was, utilizing half a dozen rooms in a Manor house with nearly three hundred rooms at last counting. Of course, being a wizarding domicile nearly four hundred years old, with a series of sycophantic aristocrats and one Dark Lord in its history, the floorplan could not be considered set in stone. 

The last person who had attempted a map of the Manor's four floors was Corvus Malfoy in the seventeenth century. He'd died young, however, and none of his ancestors had been interested in completing the work. The incomplete blue print languished in a drawer in his office and Corvus' portrait, once in a hidden alcove in the gallery wing on the second floor, was one of Draco's favorites. The crows Corvus was named for embellished the view, fluttering from limb to limb in the winter bare trees and an earlier version of the Manor sat on the hill behind him, spectacular even when it only had two floors. The subject of the painting, a young blond man who could only be a Malfoy, wore light gray satin knee breaches and an elaborately embroidered waistcoat. Long ruffled sleeves fell over his pale hands and a ruff of lace spilled down his chest from a high collar. His long hair was pulled back in a simple bow, visible when he turned his head, and his gray eyes were soft and gentle. 

Despite the heavy, dark clouds depicted over the Manor and the foreboding, spindly black branches of the trees, Corvus was not a formidable figure and during Lucius' time had therefore been banned to a corner. But he had been kind to Draco, unlike the portraits of many of his other ancestors. Draco had been a lonely little boy with few friends, mostly because he'd been raised to believe he was better than other people. Few of the pure-bloods he'd been allowed to play with tolerated him, mostly because they'd all been raised to believe the same thing. It seemed fitting they had all turned out to be wrong about their superiority. Draco had the portrait moved into his more formal drawing room when he'd taken over care of the house from his mother, and he and Corvus still chatted at least once a week.

Draco's eyes scanned the front of the _Prophet_ and finding nothing of interest, he flipped restlessly to the following page. Immediately his eyes fell on a photo that took up just under a quarter of the printed area, and his breath caught for a moment. He hated when this happened, and it always happened when the man's photo turned up in the paper. And his photo turned up almost every bloody day. Draco sighed, his heart sinking, but he didn't turn the page either. 

The moving photo showed a slim-hipped, broad-shouldered man in the short red jacket and fitted black slacks of the Auror Department, his knee-high black boots gleaming as he walked through the stalls lining Diagon. He had a long stride, a masculine gait that made Draco feel like he minced by comparison. His black hair was slightly shorter than he'd worn it when they were younger but a thick curl fell over his forehead, obscuring the famous scar. He no longer wore the simple round spectacles he'd worn when they were at school, either, and Draco wondered vaguely if he'd had Muggle vision correction surgery or if he'd finally found a Healer he trusted enough to do it. How those vivid eyes must shine now, he thought, unimpeded by a thick lens of glass. 

A slightly taller, beefier man with longish, thick ginger hair walked at his side, and they exchanged a grin over something the red head had said. And God, the way that slow, slightly lopsided grin made Draco's chest ache. He clutched the paper hard, biting down on his lower lip, but he watched the loop play through once, and then again, and again. Finally he tore his eyes away and read the headline beneath the wizarding photo.

**_"Head Auror Potter and Deputy Assistant Weasley on their way to lunch at the Leaky Cauldron"._ **

"Oh, for fuck's sakes," Draco muttered. "How fucking ridiculous." He affected a higher, snarly voice, _"Head Auror Potter cuts wind after lunch at the Leaky Cauldron; blame is placed on the fatty food."_ He dropped the pretentious voice. "Even though the bastard doesn't have the decency to go to fat, eating in places like the cauldron. He probably still runs every day." He snapped the paper closed and dropped it onto the flames in the hearth. "Merlin, I wish he'd die." But that was a lie.

Draco reached for the brandy snifter sitting in a candle lit warmer at his elbow and watched the pages of the newspaper curl in on themselves with a certain amount of satisfaction. The picture reappeared as page one turned into a tube of ash, and the second page went the way of the first, fire slowly eating away at the glamorous, white smile until it disappeared and crumbled to dust. Draco took a sip of the fine, warmed amber liquor, enjoying the heat as it moved over his palate and down his throat. As long as he could burn the pictures to dust, he supposed he could deal with seeing them occasionally.

The flames flared bright green, consuming the rest of the paper with a 'whump' of sound and Draco straightened in surprise. Unless it was Scorpius, he couldn't imagine anyone Flooing him.

"Draco?"

It wasn't a voice he expected. 

"Blaise?"

The handsome face of one of the four friends he still occasionally saw from their Hogwarts days floated in the flames. He saw Pansy often, and dropped in on Greg and Millie for the occasional Sunday meal, (Greg had turned into a more than passable cook, and Millie, being a brilliant peadiatric Healer, didn't feel the need to compete with him in the kitchen). But Blaise he saw maybe once every three or four months, and they had no plans to meet tonight.

"Is everyone all right?" Draco sat forward, an unpleasant thrill of alarm gripping his chest. 

"Everyone is fine, old man," Blaise said quickly. "Just, do let me in, will you?"

Draco picked up his wand from where it sat next to the brandy warmer, and waved it in the complicated motion that unlocked the warded Floo. Moments later Blaise stepped through, his expensive French loafers appearing first, then gray cashmere slacks and a fitted jacket on his long, lean frame. He was still beautiful, not one of his jet-black hairs out of place or turning white. Draco self-consciously ran his hand over his own hair, and Blaise grinned when he saw the uncomfortable gesture. Draco flipped him his middle finger when he noticed his friend's shit eating grin. He and Blaise spent more than one evening discussing his hairline.

"What the fuck do you want?" Draco scowled with more venom than he actually felt as Blaise brushed his arms free of invisible soot.

"Very nice," Blaise responded, his smile firmly in place. He gestured towards the brandy in Draco's hand. "Care to share a bit of that?"

Draco scowled, but he would never allow himself to be called a dreadful host.  
"Knobly," he said, and an elderly house-elf appeared at his side, giving a creaky bow. 

"Master Blaise," he said in his rasping voice. "My, it has been a while since we've been seeing you."

"That's because Master Blaise has been screwing his way through the south of France," Draco said drily. Blaise shot him an arched brow.

"Bitter, bitter," he muttered under his breath, then turned the full wattage of his brilliant smile onto Knobly. "Knobly, old thing, do you think I could have a snifter of what Master Draco is drinking?"

"Of course, Master Blaise," the little elf bowed deeply and disappeared. 

"Do let me direct my own elves, thank you," Draco complained. He stared up at Blaise. "And not to be rude," he went on sardonically, "but what are you doing here?"

"You wouldn't know how not to be rude," Blaise said with a laugh. "It's in the breeding."

Draco gave him a measured look. "Takes one to know one, Darling." Blaise's grin really was entirely too glamorous, and Draco huffed. "Oh, do sit down."

Blaise folded his long, lean frame coolly into the matching armchair across from Draco's, crossing his legs. Knobly popped back in just long enough to deliver his brandy. He turned to Draco.

"Will you be needing anything else, Master Draco?"

Draco gave him a sardonic look. "Remembered who you work for, did you?"

"Simply remembering Master's orders," the little elf creaked. "Most important is being a gracious host." He bowed again and disappeared. 

Blaise laughed. "He has you there, old man."

Draco scowled. "All right, now that you have your brandy and you're comfortably stretched out next to my fire," Blaise saluted him wryly with his snifter, "why are you here?"

Blaise looked down into his glass. "I can't just come to visit my old friend?"

"Zabini, honestly…" Draco was at the end of his patience, and Blaise apparently read him correctly. He held up his free hand. 

"Fine, fine." He exhaled heavily. He met Draco's eyes, all of his merriment faded away. Now he looked serious and resolved, and that was alarming. Blaise was never serious, or resolved. "I – heard something recently, and I think you and I need to talk."

Draco hated that term, 'we need to talk'. It had never led anywhere he wanted to go.

oooOOOooo

Instantly on stepping through the Floo, Harry could smell the familiar scents of Ginny's perfume and sun warmed laundry, and the deep bitter fragrance of her coffee brewing. She wasn't standing in front of the mirror any longer, and Harry followed the sound of her humming into the kitchen. Gin couldn't carry a tune to save her life; it didn't stop her trying, and he grinned at the unrecognizable song she was attempting. He leaned against the countertop and watched her as she reached into a cupboard for two heavy ceramic coffee mugs. Her long sheet of auburn hair gleamed against her black sweater, swinging down near her slender waist. She was as slim as she'd been before the three kids, and he admired her long, coltish legs clad in clinging dark jeans and the pert arse that had first attracted his attention at fifteen. He was definitely a man who appreciated a shapely backside.

"Stop looking at my bum," she scolded without turning, picking up the pot from the coffee maker and pouring.

"If you don't want people looking at your bum," he crossed and leaned on the cupboards beside her, "don't wear pants that tight."

"Oh, there are some people I don't mind looking at my arse," she gave him a wry look, "just not you. That privilege has been revoked."

"Ouch." He rubbed the center of his chest. "You wound me."

"I'll wound you," she muttered, handing him a cup of the black coffee. "And I've rearranged the drawers so you don't even know where the sharp bits are any more." He arched a brow and gave her an amused look. "Fine, wanker." She picked up her own cup, leaning next to him on the counter, wrinkling her nose. He was reminded how cute she was, even for a woman nearing forty. "You don't need anything pointed to retaliate should you want to. It's bloody annoying that you can do wandless, you know."

Now he grinned, but he didn't answer. He took a sip of the coffee and sighed. It would probably keep him up half the night but the dark, brilliant flavor was worth it. 

"So, did Augie have anything to say about my searching for you in the middle of the afternoon?"

Harry shrugged one shoulder. "Not really."

"Liar. I'm sure she was scandalized. The old bat hates me."

Harry decided to let that one go; they'd argued enough about Augie's attitude when they were still married. 

"So, the kids are okay?" He assumed they must be or she wouldn't have made him coffee.

"As far as I know," she answered. "They are teenagers. Why?"

Harry gave her an incredulous look. "If it's not something to do with the kids, why _are_ you looking for me in the middle of the afternoon?"

Her expression didn't change. "I wanted you to know I'm getting remarried."

She nearly managed it. If a betraying twinkle hadn't entered her wide brown eyes, he'd have almost believed her. But she was a dreadful liar, and he knew it better than anyone. 

"Nice try."

"Hey, I might've hooked up with one of my exes."

He grinned. "Well, let's see. There's Corner, but last I heard he was setting up house with a kid young enough to be his son. A _male_ kid. Then there's Dean, but I think Seamus might protest. As a matter of fact, if you think about it, Gin…"

"Don't go there," she said sourly. "I do not turn men queer. I can make the argument that you were all queer before you got to me, so just shut it."

Harry angled his head, trying to keep a straight face. She held onto her composure for another five seconds, then began to laugh. She had a brilliant laugh; he'd always thought so, and it made him smile.

"All right," she said finally. "So I wasn't looking for you to announce my engagement, and I kind of resent that you wouldn't believe it if I did."

"Oh, I'd believe it," he said easily. "I just know if you were engaged, Lily would have already told me."

Ginny sighed. "I can't argue with you there. The child is a horrible tattler."

"Just keeping me in the loop. So, what is going on?"

"Actually," she gave him an amused look, "I contacted you for my brother's wife."

"I'm assuming you mean Hermione?"

"Right in one." She tossed her hair over her shoulder. "For some reason, she didn't think it was a good idea for the Hogwarts Headmistress to contact the Head Auror while he was at work. Something to do with the gossip network at the Ministry." Harry frowned, and Ginny held up her hand. "I have no idea. But since I was sitting here going through a Quality Quidditch catalogue when her head appeared in the fire, I couldn't exactly claim I was busy. Please, just Floo her; she was acting weird, even for Hermione. Feel free to use mine."

"Okay." Harry felt a niggling of concern as he set his coffee cup on the counter. Hermione did have a tendency to over-think things, but she rarely over-reacted. If she was trying to reach him through Ginny, that was strange. He tossed a handful of Floo powder into what had once been his fireplace and announced, "Headmistress Hermione Granger-Weasley's office at Hogwarts". It was only a moment before her face appeared. 

"Harry. So Ginny got 'hold of you?"

He gestured behind him where Gin was looking over his shoulder. "So it would seem."

"Can you come through?"

"Hermione, what the hell is this about?"

She shook her head. "I don't want to speak about it through an open Floo connection. Can you come through? Please."

Harry noticed that she looked a bit careworn and uneasy, and he nodded. "Of course." He glanced back at Ginny. "I'll talk to you soon, yeah?"

She nodded at him over the cup cradled between her palms. "I've got a date tonight, and he's _not gay,_ you wanker," she scolded when his smile reappeared, "but if it's about one of the kids, send your Patronus. We're having dinner in Diagon."

"Will do. Have fun. If he's cute, give him my number." She aimed a kick at his arse but missed as Harry stepped into the Floo again, grimacing as the jarring mode of travel caught him in the stomach and whirled him through space.

oooOOOooo

"We need to talk about what?" Draco asked carefully.

Blaise looked as wary as Draco felt. "All right, now, before we venture into this, I want you to make me a promise."

Draco frowned. "Why in the world would I promise anything, when I don't know what I'm promising?"

"Because you need to remember that I am your friend, and I came here in that capacity."

Draco swallowed, but his mouth felt dry. "You're starting to concern me, Blaise."

"I think you should be a bit concerned."

Draco's hands went cold. This couldn't be good. "Will you please just tell me what is going on?"

Blaise nodded. "Yes. Just remember the old saying about not killing the messenger."

Draco glared at him. 

"Fine. You know that I went to the Widows and Orphans fund raising gala with Pansy."

"Of course I know that. I picked out the bint's gown and jewels for the evening, even though she knew my invitation apparently 'went astray'." But Umbrage, of all people, was the chair of the invitations committee. How the old cow still managed to be relevant was beyond him. "So, you were her plus one. And?"

Blaise took a sip of his brandy, clearly stalling. Finally, he set the snifter aside and linked his fingers. "You also know how much dear Pans likes to drink at those events."

Draco rolled his eyes, but nodded. He loved her, but Pansy was a terrible lush.

"And when she's drunk, she tends to talk."

"Run off at the mouth, you mean. And yes, I know she's indiscreet." Draco paused as a niggle of anxiety shivered up his spine. "What did she do?"

Blaise didn't blink. "Fortunately, the other people at our table were otherwise occupied in their own conversations, and I was able to get her into a Floo before she blathered to a reporter and it all came out on the front page of the _Prophet_. But she told me something I'm quite certain I was never meant to know."

The apprehension Draco felt was no longer a misgiving, but a rush of fear. "What?"

"It's about Scorpius," Blaise said almost gently, "and what you were actually doing for the six months you supposedly went abroad in 2006."

As all of the blood in his body seemed to rush from his head to his heart, which was pounding madly, it was a miracle that Draco didn't faint dead away.

oooOOOooo

Harry had always hated traveling via Floo, and two trips so close together was never good. Still, he no longer felt as if he might immediately vomit on getting his feet beneath him once again, so that had to be considered an improvement. He stepped out into the cavernous office in the Hogwarts east tower, glad for his heavy Auror's jacket when he felt the cool air brush against his face.

Hermione was seated at the big desk both Dumbledore and McGonagall had used during their tenures as Head, and the sight still filled Harry with a combination of amusement and pride. She was a brilliant Headmistress but it was strange to see his childhood friend seated behind Dumbledore's desk. Harry glanced up at the portrait of the old man to find him, as usual, dozing in his chair, his long thin hands crossed serenely in his lap.

"I know. It's still weird, isn't it?" She'd only been headmistress for two years, and it still took some getting used to. She laid her quill down on top of the parchment she'd been writing on, then leaned back in the chair. She was a diminutive person, and the back of the tall chair towered over her head. 

"A bit," Harry agreed. He pushed is hands into the pockets of his trousers and crossed to the desk. "I guess when we were kids running around this old place, it never occurred to me my best friend would end up Headmistress."

She eyed his uniform meaningfully, her examination settling on the elaborate Ministry insignia on the right side of his jacket's breast, and the four gleaming gold metal stars on his collar. "Much as it never occurred to me that the boy who broke every rule in the place might end up Head Auror?"

"Point." He gave her an ironic grin as he settled into the chair facing the desk, extending his legs and crossing them at the ankle. "So, what's the big secret, Hermione?"

She looked away from his watchful gaze, straightening a pile of what looked like essays. "I didn't say anything about a secret." 

"No, you only asked Ginny to get in touch so you wouldn't be observed trying to contact me on the Ministry Floo. And Augustina would be deeply offended to find out you don't think she's reliable."

"I think Augie is one of the most reliable people I've ever met," Hermione countered. "I just happen to know the Floo's at the Ministry leak like a sieve. I worked there for a decade, remember."

"And I miss being able to slip out of the office to yours for tea," he said. "'Still doesn't explain what all of this secrecy is about."

She sighed softly, then picked up a book from the corner of the desk. There was a new quill used as a book mark towards the middle of it, and she opened the book, taking the white feather out and leaving the book open on her blotter. "All right," she said, finally meeting his eyes. "I know this sounds very strange, but I want you to read something. And I need you to keep an open mind while you do it."

"Hermione, just tell me what's going on." He was becoming increasingly annoyed, and was tired after sitting in four meetings that day, out of sorts because they'd been so aggravating. He didn't want to 'keep an open mind'. 

"I can't do that, Harry," she countered. "There needs to be context before we start to talk about it. But I need you to promise you won't throw the book at my head once you've read it."

"Oh, for Gods sakes." Harry held out his hand. She leaned forward to hand the book over, then sat back in the large chair, her eyes watchful. He turned it so that he could read the heading across the top of the page. "'Pure Blood Family Traditions and Rituals amongst the Sacred Twenty-Eight?' What the fuck, Hermione?"

"Just read it, Harry. The part that's bracketed in pencil."

He let out a rough sigh. There was a long paragraph bracketed beginning and end with heavy black pencil, and he rested his right elbow on the arm of the chair, his chin propped on his hand as he read. 

_"It's long been whispered in certain circles that a few of the old pure-blood families made what was referred to at the time as a 'Bargain with Hadrian' in order to preserve their pure blood status. (Hadrian was the Roman emperor who famously preferred his male lover, Antinous, to his wife Sabina. He'd also built a wall through Britain that remained wildly unpopular when this spell came to fruition.) In actuality the bargain was a bit of complicated dark magic performed by wizarding family patriarchs in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to compel a lone male offspring to produce at least one male heir. A few of the aristocratic families in question had difficulty in this area, regardless of the suitability of spouses who had been bought and paid for. This appeared to be a direct result of sexual preference for people of their own gender, and was uniformly confined to male descendants who wouldn't agree to impregnate their wives._

Irritation morphed into a steady throbbing behind his right eye. He rubbed over his eyebrow and cleared his throat awkwardly. 

"Hermione, why am I reading a history lesson about members of the sacred twenty-eight," he rolled his eyes on that, "and their queer offspring?" 

The sacred twenty-eight were the oldest and purest pure bloods of upper wizarding aristocracy. It wasn't clear when the phrase was coined or the list compiled; Harry only knew that most of the families on the list, with the glaring exceptions of the Weasleys and the Prewetts, would do anything, including kill if they had to, to stay on it. The majority of them had ended up in Voldemort's merry band of Death Eaters. Harry had always thought it was a load of shite.

"Please, just finish. Then we'll talk; I promise." 

She looked so genuinely earnest that Harry sighed, but returned to the book. 

_"For male offspring who were unable or reluctant to get an heir on their wives, the spell was known as the **Mas Gravidus**. A bit of dark magic performed with the blood and hair of the patriarch, the spell's major drawback, not known at the time of first casting, was that it 'cursed' all future generations who preferred members of their own sex to themselves conceive and carry a male child. The spell also didn't take into account that the male wizard's biology wasn't designed to carry a child and give birth. Because pure-bloods tended to not want to share information about a male pregnancy with anyone, including a Healer, instead of guaranteeing the continuation of the family line many times it ended it completely."_

_Harry read the whole of the two paragraphs again, then closed the book and looked up at Hermione._

_"All right, I've read it, although I think it's a load of shite." Hermione raised a slender brow and he returned the wry expression with exasperation. "I can't recall ever seeing a pregnant wizard. Can you?"_

_"I've never _seen_ one, no," she said carefully. "That doesn't mean it's impossible."_

_"Oh, come on, Hermione." He thumped the book in his lap with his knuckles. "This is a ridiculous pile of hippogriff dung. Where did you even find this nonsense?" He picked up the book and studied the cover. It was an indeterminate brown color, the title embossed in copper that actually seemed to be oxidizing. He rubbed his thumb over the greenish tinge. Opening to the title page, he found the year of publication. MDCCCXLIV. He scowled; he'd never been much good at converting Roman Numerals._

_"The year you're searching for is 1844," she said with subdued amusement. He scowled at her._

_"You're a condescending cow sometimes, you know that?" He didn't mean it, and she wasn't offended._

_"I tried to tell both you and Ronald that reading might come in handy at some point."_

_"What's reading got to do with Roman Numerals?" She opened her mouth and he held up his hand. "Never mind, okay? Just…" He let the book thump to the surface of her desk. "Explain." He realized how irritated he sounded, and dialed it back. "I'm sorry. Shite day. Please, just… what the hell? Really."_

_She appeared to think about it for a moment, then linked her fingers on her blotter._

_"You know that Hogwarts is a petri dish of gossip."_

_Harry snorted. "Always has been. What does that have to do with this." He thumped the cover of the book._

_"Nothing directly. It's just – "_

_"Research." Harry's voice overlapped a deep voice coming from behind him, and he turned to see Ron Weasley ducking to clear the fireplace lintel as he stepped into the room._

_"Well, well, Deputy," Harry said ironically, but he was smiling. He stood and offered his hand. Ron shook it._

_"Chief."_

_Harry grimaced at him, then teasingly brushed at the smudge on Ron's shoulder. Ron frowned at it._

_"Damn."_

_"You never could Floo properly."_

_"Oh, look who's talking, Mr Diagonally."_

_"Hey, it was my first time, you git."_

_Ron laughed as Harry sat, then dropped inelegantly into the chair beside him. Harry didn't remember it appearing, but then Hermione had always had a very subtle hand with her magic._

_"I gather you're here about whatever this is." Harry indicated the book._

_"Oh, yes. I got to read it this morning, even though my _wife_ ," Ron gave Hermione an arch look, "wouldn't tell me why in hell I was reading it." _

_"You both need to keep an open mind," she said firmly. They stared at her._

_"We do." When Harry said it, it didn't sound like a question. She was too smart to bring something to their attention without having checked it out, but still… "Where are you going with this, Hermione? You said something about castle gossip just before Ron arrived. What's that got to do with you calling us here?"_

_She took a deep breath. "I heard something from a student on Wednesday," she answered. "Something involving Scorpius Malfoy," she looked steadily into Harry's eyes. "And Albus."_

_Harry couldn't ignore the uneasiness that bloomed in his chest. He held her gaze._

_Hermione looked uncomfortable, but she pressed on._

_"Do you know – the nature of their friendship, Harry?"_

__

oooOOOooo

Draco felt as if Blaise's words echoed around the room. _"It's about Scorpius, and what you were actually doing for the six months you supposedly went abroad in 2006."_

Draco swallowed, but his mouth had gone dry and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He forced himself to take a sip of his brandy, then met Blaise's gently inquiring look as bravely as he could.

"I have no idea what you're talking about." He almost made it through the whole sentence; it was only on the last word that his pounding heart and jangled nerves conspired to make his voice crack. He cleared his throat roughly. "About," he repeated with emphasis, knowing it was bloody stupid. 

"Draco." Blaise shook his head. "Give it up, old man. Pansy told me everything."

"I don't know what Pansy thinks she knows," Draco snarled, anger blooming. "But I can assure you…"

"So," Blaise interrupted, "your ancestor Pyxis Malfoy didn't make a 'Bargain with Hadrian' by performing the _Mas Gravidas_ in 1597 when his son Pavo refused to get an heir on his wife Seculara? And the spell didn't curse, shall we say, men of our persuasion who had the misfortune to turn up in your family line?" Blaise's carefully tweezed black brows rose as he let the question hang. "You may be only the second Malfoy to get caught by it, Draco, but you and I were brought up on the horrors of what became of others who took a convenient tour of the continent."

Draco could feel his heart pounding just below the right angle of his jaw. He rubbed the spot absently, unable to meet Blaise's piercing gaze.

Well, Pansy had been humiliatingly thorough for someone who had been in her cups. The vicious bitch. He'd never speak to her again. But, thank Merlin, she apparently hadn't told Blaise who…

"Does Potter know?"

Startled alarm brought Draco's eyes jerking back up to Blaise's face. 

"If she told me the rest, did you really think she'd leave that part out?" Blaise whispered. 

Draco was horrified when he felt tears threaten, and he pushed himself up from his chair, knocking his snifter to the floor. It smashed with a satisfying racket. He turned his back, leaning on the heavy white marble mantle and staring into the flames. "Knobly," he said, no longer caring that his voice was unsteady. He heard the pop behind him but didn't turn. "Please clean that up. I appear to be having a clumsy evening."

He could have vanished the mess, but his wand was next to the warmer and he wasn't going to turn around. Not yet. Not until he had himself under control. Not until he could put his mask back in place, and Blaise wouldn't be able to read anything on his face. 

_Fuck,_ he thought viciously. _Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fucking Parkinson and her big fucking mouth. Fucking Zabini, with his warm, wide brown eyes and his bloody **kindness**. He could bear almost anything but that. They'd almost made it, too, with no one being the wiser. Scorpius would be seventeen in twenty-one days, legally of age, and then none of it would matter…_ He closed his eyes but could still see the flames through his paper thin eyelids.

"Is Master Draco…quite all right?" Knobly asked quietly.

"Quite."

"He's fine, Knobly," he heard Blaise reassure the old elf. "Just a bit all thumbs. Perhaps that's enough brandy for tonight?"

Knobly said something to Blaise, but so quietly Draco couldn't make it out. Blaise answered, there was another soft, concussive pop, and the room fell into a silence Draco had no intention of breaking. It lasted a long time.

"Draco," Blaise said finally. "You didn't answer my question."

"Nor shall I." 

The quiet fell again. After several minutes, Draco heard the chair behind him creak. 

"I think I'll be going," Blaise murmured. 

"I think you should. I'm not very good company."

"I didn't come here for company."

The statement lit Draco's anger until it became rage, so quickly and thoroughly it was as if his soul was dried tinder. It left him light-headed. He whirled, then had to tighten the fingers still on the cool marble so hard the tips were white, and his head was spinning. "What did you come for?" he asked as Blaise's face swam before him. "To gloat? To rub my face in your clear superiority?" Draco was shaking, he was so furious. "We used to feel so superior, didn't we? Sure that only a really _stupid_ pure blooded queer would allow himself to get caught up the duff, made a freak by a four hundred year old curse. And by a half blood, no less. I'm sure your mother is so very, very proud you've managed to avoid sullying the Zabini name. So what spell did she use to make it possible for you to get Matthew on Carissa? I know you didn't do it voluntarily."

Blaise's face, which had been so open only moments before, abruptly shuttered. He stood up stiffly. "I'll take my leave. But before I go, you should know that tattle about Scorpius has begun to make the rounds at Hogwarts."

Draco felt as if he'd been hit with a 'Crucio'. He rocked back on his heels.

" _That's_ why I came here tonight, you vicious bitch. Because my mother's had a letter from my horror of a niece, telling her all about it. The scuttlebutt is your son's been caught in the curse, courtesy of _Albus Potter_. And if that doesn't have Greek tragedy written all over it, I don't know what does."

"Oh, God." Draco felt as if he might vomit.

"No help for you there, I'm afraid. You might try plucking up the courage to be honest with him, and be father enough to help him."

Draco felt as if Blaise had struck him. "Fuck you," he wheezed. 

Blaise's lips twisted. "Oh, that was over and done with in fifth year, Draco. I wouldn't touch you now if you paid me." He turned away, threw Floo powder onto the flames, and then he was gone.

Draco stared at the spot where Blaise had stood for several seconds, then his knees failed him. He sank to the floor, his head in his hands.

oooOOOooo

"The 'nature of their friendship'?" Harry repeated Hermione's words stiffly. "For fuck's sakes, they're friends, Hermione. Have been since creche."

Harry would never forget the first time he'd picked Al up at nursery school. He hadn't been prepared, and he stood in the doorway staring until a mum behind him nudged him out of the way with a terse, 'excuse me'. He'd moved, but his eyes immediately went back to the toddlers with their heads together across the room; one with messy, curling black hair, and the other with straight hair neat as a pin, white blond, and utterly recognizable. No one he'd ever met in the wizarding world had hair that distinctive shade but a Malfoy. After that day every time he'd been tasked to pick Al up, he both dreaded and in a sick way anticipated who he might run into retrieving the other little boy. But Scorpius Malfoy was fetched each and every day for the entirety of the years they spent in nursery and then primary by a nanny, and Harry supposed he should have expected it. 

"I wasn't thrilled about the relationship, at first," Harry said in the understatement of the decade. "But Scorpius is a good kid." And he was a very good kid. He was a good influence on Al, who was very smart but had just enough Weasley in him to be on the wild side, and Potter to be a rule breaker.

"In spite of his parenting," Ron said sardonically. 

"Or maybe because of it." Hermione gave him a quelling look. 

"Or maybe because of it," Harry agreed quietly. "I wish you'd just spell out what you're insinuating, Hermione. And if you're headed where I think you are – " He could hear the warning in his own voice, and he took a deep breath. "It's just that the whole thing is so – "

"Fucking weird?" Ron inserted. "But ask yourself this, Mate; is it any more fucking weird than us turning into Crabbe and Goyle?" 

Harry didn't have a response to that. 

Hermione leaned forward on her elbows. "Harry, Scorpius' first class of the day is Herbology. After I heard that there were rumors circulating, I went to Neville and asked him if he'd," she shrugged one shoulder, a bit awkward, "heard anything. Or noticed anything off about how they were behaving."

Harry frowned. "And?"

"He hadn't, other than some repeated absences. But," she held up her hand, "he knew about this. Neville, I mean, knew this." She tapped the book. "Apparently all pure bloods do."

"Yeah? So what?"

Hermione and Harry both turned to stare at Ron. 

"What?" He shrugged and gave her a wry look. "Forgot you married one there for a minute, didn't you? And to us it was just another magical story. Mum used it like a warning, so none of us would do anything… well, queer." Ron grinned slyly. "Clearly, didn't take with Charlie." He gave Harry an unapologetically amused look. "Should've sat you down at some point, too, I reckon."

"Oh, fuck off," Harry grumbled. Ron grinned. Harry kicked him in the shin and it was sharp enough to change Ron's look to a grimace. 

"Ouch, you arsehole."

"Oh, will you both just _grow up_." Hermione had clearly run out of patience. "Aren't you listening to me?"

"Hermione, we always listen to you." Ron gave her a weary look. "It's just all this tap dancing about wears a man out."

"Hermione," Harry's voice was flat. "I appreciate you coming to me, but I can't accept that my son and his best friend have suddenly found themselves – Lord," he shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. "Not because of some old pureblood rot, just…no. I don't want to hear it." He stood. "I'm going home."

"Harry, please," Hermione implored. "Something is wrong. Scorpius is missing his first class of the day several times a week, and when he's gone so is Albus. One of their classmates actually came to me, she's so concerned about them."

"Was this classmate perhaps your daughter?" Harry asked dryly. Hermione's eyes narrowed. 

"No, actually," she said tartly. "I asked Rose if she'd noticed anything, and she very politely told me to mind my own business."

"That's my girl," Ron muttered. "You should've followed her advice." The look Hermione gave him would've pealed skin off of a lesser man. 

"I can't mind my own business," Hermione said through pinched lips. "It is my job to see to the welfare of my students. Which, whether you like the implication or not, Harry Potter, is what I'm doing!"

He hesitated, then sat on the arm of the chair.

The silence that followed was uncomfortable. 

"I'm contacting you, as Albus's father, as a courtesy." Hermione's voice was very prim.

"Oy, pull that stick out of your arse, headmistress." Ron said. "He's your nephew, too."

Color filled her cheeks, but she glared at him. "Yes, he is," she said. "And I love Al, you know that." She pushed thick brown curls lightly threaded with silver over her shoulder, leaned over her desk and gave Harry a beseeching look. "He reminds me so much of you, Harry, when we first met."

Harry wasn't able to give her a smile, but he tried. "Except he's far smarter than I was."

The corner of her full lips quirked up. "There is that. And you know I don't want this to be true. Completely aside from the fact that they're just children."

"We were fighting a war at their age," Ron murmured. 

"And thank God, they've been raised in a time where Voldemort didn't haunt their entire childhood," she added.

"True, that. But, they're almost legally of age, Hermione," Ron argued. "And damned near out of here. In three months, those boys will be walking out the door and there won't be a bloody thing you or anyone else can do about any of this."

"I know that, Ronald." She turned imploring eyes back to Harry. "It's why I'm doing this _now_. Do you think I wanted to pull you into this, Harry? Or would you rather I didn't, it ended up being true, and Al is caught completely off guard?" Harry blew out a rough breath, staring down at his hands. "I hate gossip as much as anyone, but I can't just ignore it, not when someone requested a meeting to bring it to my attention."

That brought Harry's eyes back up "Who was it?" he asked, his voice tight, finally seeing something he could aim his burgeoning anger at. 

Hermione sighed. "You know I can't tell you that."

"I know you won't," he said between his teeth.

"That's not fair." Hermione looked genuinely wounded, and Harry regretted his tone.

"Miranda Finch-Fletchley," Ron muttered, giving Harry a pointed look. 

"Or that vicious little harpy, Sabine Zabini," Harry added. Rose had endured years of harassment from both of the girls, but Hermione didn't bite. She just pursed her lips. 

"As their headmistress," she repeated, looking away from Harry, "I have a responsibility to contact both Scorpius and Albus's parents."

"So why isn't Malfoy here, then?" Harry asked darkly. "Or Gin? You went through her to get to me today." Hermione closed her eyes, holding her breath before exhaling harshly. 

"Because you're my best friend, you… you git." It was a term she never used, and sounded odd coming from her mouth. "I'm bending the rules for you, to give you a chance to get ahead of it. I know how close you are with Al. I will have to tell Ginny at some point, and Malfoy, too, but today I just wanted you to have a chance to talk to your son first. Which I absolutely shouldn't have done. It's blatant favoritism."

Harry gave Ron a look but he didn't look fussed. Ginny was his sister, after all, and he knew her better than almost anyone. He gave Harry a slight shrug that said, 'she isn't wrong'. The last thing they needed was Ginevra Weasley-Potter flying in with her hair on fire. Ron knew how she'd react to even the rumors, and Harry was a better choice to approach it with Al. 

"As the other parent involved, I will have to contact Malfoy. And won't that just be a treat." A hiss of sound came from above her, and she glanced up with a weary sigh. Harry could hear the scandalized whispers from the portraits of hundreds of years of Hogwarts Heads hanging on the walls above her, and even though it made no sense, as angry as he'd been only moments before, he wanted to spring to her defense. 

"Oy," Ron said, glaring up at them. "Dead people. Shut it."

They stared down at him in offense, then began to tear a strip off of him, at volume. It was so surreal Harry fought the urge to laugh out loud, feeling a bit mad.

"Oh, do put a stopper in it, all of you." The voice was louder than the others, and achingly familiar. It was the same voice that had once silenced an entire Great Hall full of panicked children, and the effect was the same. Immediately the room was quiet. Harry looked up to find Dumbledore looking down at him with a fond smile. "Hello, Harry."

"Professor," Harry replied, cognizant that even after all of the years since he'd seen him last, his throat still thickened at the sight of the benevolent smile. 

"And as for all of you," Dumbledore said sternly to his fellow Headmasters, "don't hang there trying to pretend you never gave preferential treatment to students you were particularly fond of. Dippet."

Armando Dippet looked away, his painted cheeks staining pink. They all knew who Dippet had favored; there was no point in rubbing it in.

"I didn't." 

The deep voice was austere and stern, much like the man had been.

Harry looked to Dumbledore's left and saw the portrait of the grim, unsmiling professor with shoulder length black hair, a prominent nose and piercing black eyes. He wore black robes and a high collared black tunic that accentuated his thin frame. His arms were crossed, and he was standing at a brewing table, the pewter cauldron in front of him simmering over blue flames. 

Dumbledore turned his benign smile onto Snape. "Oh, please. That isn't true, Severus. You were very fond of a young Malfoy, as I recall."

Snape's lips pinched and his fingers went white knuckled where they squeezed his upper arms. 

"Why? Because I saved his life when this one," he gave Harry a bitter look, "tried to kill him?"

Harry felt his cheeks heat.

"Oh, are we going to start keeping score on students trying to kill one another, Severus?" Snape's lips pinched and he looked away. "I thought not. So, now that we've established students have occasionally tried to do one another bodily harm over the years, shall we stop being a bunch of twittering old biddies and see how we might _help_ the current headmistress with this rather thorny problem?" He looked down and smiled kindly at Hermione. "Headmistress, can a gaggle of old gray beards offer any help with your issue?"

Hermione frowned thoughtfully. "I think we should let Harry speak with Albus first, sir. They're close, and Al might need his father's counsel."

"I agree. Now, the rest of you," he glared around the room. "Go back to sleep and, how do you put it now? Butt -- Out?"

There was some general muttering, but after that the room settled once again into silence. 

"Well," Ron said when the portraits had all stilled. "That was weird."

"Welcome to my life," Hermione muttered. Harry grimaced; he thought the Ministry was bad. Kingsley was the only one who had the portraits of former Minister's nattering at him, and he was welcome to it.

"Okay, so Al is heading to dinner about now. Why don't I take a walk up to the Great Hall and see if I can't intercept him? I'll come back here when I'm done talking to him."

"Why don't you join Ron and I for dinner, first." When Harry opened his mouth to refuse, she held up her hand. "Think, Harry. Wouldn't it be better to let Al see you before you just turn up and confront him?" 

Harry thought about it. He wasn't remotely hungry, but this wasn't really about him. 

"Come on, Harry," Ron cajoled. "You can't tell me dinner made by the Hogwarts elves doesn't beat hell out of beans on toast."

"I can manage a decent bolognaise, you know," he complained, but he couldn't really disagree. And who knew? Maybe there'd be trifle for dessert. After a Hogwarts dinner, his request that Al join him on a walk around the lake wouldn't even seem weird. "But I see your point. So – thank you for the invitation."

"Gracefully done," Ron said with an impish grin. "Feel up to a seat at the head table?" 

"Oh, bloody hell," Harry groaned, scrubbing his hand over his face. He hated being on display.

oooOOOooo

Draco sat on the floor for a very long time. By the time he pushed himself slowly to his feet, he had to grip the hearth face so he didn't stumble head first into the flames. Once he was stable, he moved stiffly across the floor, feeling a hundred years old. He lowered himself carefully into a delicate brocade Queen Anne chair behind what had been his mother's small desk. They had always been a pair, the desk and the chair, for as long as he could remember. Having it here in his sitting room made him feel close to her, and he ran his hands over the inlay of roses that decorated the corners of the desktop.

He felt damaged, hallowed out and left like a husk, and he wanted his mother so much he ached with it. He would swear he could smell her perfume, night blooming jasmine, and he didn't know if it was wishful thinking, but it wasn't the first time he'd smelled her scent here. He hated the idea of her haunting the Manor; she'd grown to loathe the house during the second war when she'd been a prisoner in her own home. If she had to haunt anywhere, he wanted to think of her in Avignon, at the Malfoy chateau during the warmth of summer. He could still see her, outside in light robes and a large hat to keep the sun from her skin, snipping roses in the ancient garden.

Taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly, he pulled a blank piece of parchment to the center of the leather blotter in front of him. He inked the quill in the pot that sat in the indentation in the upper right hand corner of the desk, then held it in his hand and stared down at the expanse of ivory. He tried to think what would be the best way to coach his words, what would be the most effective, the most politic, and he couldn't come up with anything original. After several minutes, he set the nub to the expensive linen parchment and wrote seven words.

_Blaise,_

_I'm sorry. Please forgive me._

_Draco_

It was one of the most economic, difficult things he'd ever written, but he knew he couldn't delay it. He valued Blaise's friendship, and the longer he let the evening go, the worse it would become. The words he'd spoken, given time, would become more ugly and hateful. He owed his old friend the apology, the sooner the better. He folded the parchment into a neat square, then went through the time honored and somehow settling ritual of sealing it with the dark green wax Malfoy's had used for generations, applying the family crest. 

"Knobly."

The elf appeared at his elbow.

"For Master Zabini, Master Draco?" he asked mildly.

Draco gave him a dark look. "Reading my mind will not be rewarded with an increase in salary."

He would have sworn the obnoxious old elf smirked at him. 

"Dinner at eight, sir?"

"No." Draco doubted he'd be able to eat anything, even if he wanted to. "I'll take another brandy, however."

"Not without food, Master. It would be making you sick." Draco glared at him, but Knobly wasn't cowed. "I was promising Miss Cissy I would be looking after you, Master Draco. Giving Knobly the dirty look will not change what he was promising."

Draco sighed, set his elbows on the desk and rested his face in his hands. "Just – something simple then. I don't care what. But later, please."

"I will be waiting an hour."

He disappeared, leaving Draco wishing he'd told the old bastard to go to perdition. He didn't want to eat. What he felt like doing was throwing himself on the floor and having a tantrum like little Draco had all but perfected by the time he was three. He wondered absently if it would help.

He pushed the chair back and rested his chin on his arms. There was one framed photo on the desk, a five by seven in a heavy silver frame, and he reached forward, taking it in his hand. He rubbed his thumb along the edge as the two people in the picture smiled at one another. The woman, a lovely creature in her later years, caressed the white blond hair of a happy toddler who sat on her lap. He looked up and smiled at her, and she leaned down to rub her nose against his. They both laughed, then looked out at Draco and waved. The image repeated over and over, and Draco felt a lump fill his throat. They'd been his world and he'd have done anything for them. In point of fact, he had. 

He lay his cheek on the cool wood of the desk and watched the loop over and over again as memories filled his head. He could almost smell the cigarette smoke that had filled the air the night it started, and feel the pounding bass under his feet –

_The club was full to bursting, the music loud and the smoke noxious. He and Pans had smoked pot earlier, then popped a tab of the wizarding party drug Rapture. He felt loose, and happy, and he rocked on his bar stool to the pervasive, pounding rhythm. It made the blood singing in his veins feel hot and potent, and he was half hard just watching the writhing bodies under the swirling lights._

_He'd lost Pansy somewhere in the crowd an hour ago, and he had no doubt she was either somewhere giving a stranger head, or she was locked in a stall with the lovely lipstick lesbian she'd been chatting up earlier, doing whatever it was lesbians did to one another in bar loos. He didn't begrudge her the bisexuality that gave her twice the bodies to choose from; whatever got her off was fine with him, he just didn't want to think about it._

_Draco managed to score the seat at the bar just off of the crowded dance floor, and he and the very cute bartender had been cruising one another during his first three drinks. None of which he'd paid for, thanks so much. He didn't ordinarily like Muggle bars, but this one was clean and lively and full of talent, and the ambiance was working for him. He reached down and adjusted himself in the skin tight white jeans he wore, giving the bartender a meaningful look as he did so. Oh yes, the man's smile promised a lovely evening if Draco wanted to stay in the bar until one. He was diverted for a moment by the sparkle of a shirt on one of the dancing boys on an elevated platform. Usually the twinks danced shirtless, but the top this one wore was so tight it might as well have been his skin. Covered in sequins, it flashed when the light panned over him, and Draco watched the hypnotic effect in fascination. The boy was a blond, (apparently Muggles liked willowy blonds because he'd certainly been hit on enough) and he had some glitter on his high cheekbones. He really was very pretty._

_The light suddenly changed direction, and picked up the slick chest of a very fit man, even more fit than the dancer, and he couldn't help but stare. Draco had never been what could be called muscular; he had long, lean muscles, a flat belly and prominent hipbones, which certainly did it for a lot of men, apparently. He never had a problem pulling. His pecs were all right, he supposed, but nothing like the ones on display across the room. The man had short, curly dark hair and broad shoulders, and his white button down was open. A pair of disreputable jeans clung just barely to narrow hips, and a neat trail of dark hair started between his pecs and trailed down past his navel to disappear into his jeans. Draco had a sudden craving to follow its direction with his mouth. It was always the dark-haired ones who did it for Draco; it always had been._

_The man lifted his arms over his head, slowly swiveling his hips. He had fabulous moves, unlike a lot of the poor white boys who looked like they were having a seizure. This one was smooth, and he smiled at his partner, wrapping his arm around the other man's waist, the unforgiving fabric of his shirt pulling taut around a muscular bicep. The lights caught the shape of his square jaw, rough with stubble, and his generous mouth, then glinted off of the lenses of a trendy pair of tortoise shell spectacles, and Draco –_

_Draco stopped breathing for a moment. His eyes were open so wide they actually ached. No. It couldn't be. That wasn't – but as the solid arm pulled his dance partner in so he could grind his groin against the other man's, Draco saw that it was absolutely and unmistakably Harry Fucking Potter. Killer of Dark Lord's, first in his class at Auror training and Ministry golden boy. MARRIED and father of one Harry Potter was humping another man for all he was worth in the middle of the dance floor in a Muggle gay bar. And doing a fine job of it, if the expression of abandon on his dance partner's face was anything to go by. He let his head fall back, and for just a moment Draco loathed the thin blond in Harry Potter's arms._

_Another fucking thin blond, he thought with malice. How much bleach had been used by this crowd? Why were there always so many? At least with him, the carpet matched the drapes – Draco gasped and shot to his feet. He was high, but not so high he couldn't see the resemblance between Potter's partner and well… him. Potter was dry fucking a Draco lookalike not fifteen feet away, and the drugs burning through his system took care of any reticence he might have felt. He slammed back the scotch on the rocks someone had placed in front of him, then pushed away from the bar and threaded rudely through the dancers until he was standing right behind Potter and his Draco wannabe. Potter was swaying with his back to him and Draco reached out and curtly jammed his bony index finger into Potter's thick trapezius several times in quick succession._

_For just a moment as he turned, Draco saw Potter make a telltale motion toward the inside of his shirt on the left side, right where Auror's wore their leather harnesses, and he laughed._

_"What are you going to do, Potter," he shouted over the thud of the bass, "hex me?"_

_Potter overcame his surprise at seeing Draco very quickly. "Shut up, you idiot," he ordered, glancing around, and Draco felt a bit of his high leech away. Potter was really very intimidating when he wanted to be. He straightened and affected a bored look._

_"Or what, officer? Plan to take me in? Use your baton on me?"_

_Potter stared at him for a long moment, long enough that hands with buffed and polished male nails curled around his neck from behind. Draco felt real satisfaction when Potter reached up and disentangled them with a brusque motion. Then those delectable full lips curled up at the corner. Potter patted along the sagging waistline of his own disreputable jeans._

_"No baton here."_

_Draco glanced meaningfully at the bulge trapped between Potter's thigh and his Levi's. "Really?" His eyes met Potter's again, and the spark of amusement he saw there worked on him just like another scotch on the rocks. Warmth slid down his throat and into his belly._

_"Baby, where'd you go?"_

_Oh, dear lord, the brat behind Potter tugged on his collar, and Potter's amusement turned to irritation in a heartbeat. The open shirt he wore gaped further, and Draco caught a glimpse of the Disillusioned wand harness under the cotton. Something about that made Draco nearly groan aloud. Potter had always been powerful; the magic all but surged from his skin. The hint of leather against his tawny chest made Draco's prick harden further, and he made up his mind he wouldn't let this unexpected opportunity pass him by. Potter was here, obviously on the prowl, and Draco made up his mind he wasn't going home with anyone else._

_The kid glaring at Draco over Potter's broad shoulder couldn't be more than eighteen, and even though he and Potter were twenty-five, that one looked like a child._

_"Take your toddler to the club night, Potter?"_

_Draco could've kicked himself the moment he said it. Something in Potter's eyes shifted and darkened and Draco feared he'd fucked up royally. Potter's son was what? Two, or three? A toddler. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Potter took control of himself with a mastery that was impressive. How Draco wished he could compartmentalize his life so easily._

_"I'm about to send him home to Nanny for a cuddle before bedtime." He took a step closer to Draco, the hunger in his eyes unmistakable. Oh, what that did for Draco's ego._

_"Hey," the young man complained. Draco gave him a dismissive look._

_"Oh, do run along."_

_The little bitch put his hands on his hips and nearly stomped his foot. "He was with me."_

_"Darling. He may have been with you before I got here, but trust me; he isn't with you any longer." Draco's smiled at him, hoping it looked as cold as it felt. "Look at the man."_

_The twink turned to Potter, clearly outraged. His possessiveness apparently didn't turn Potter on. He shrugged._

_"Sorry, Stuart," Potter said._

_"My name is Styler," He whined, then shot Draco a poisonous look. "And you're a whore."_

_"Takes one to know one, dear heart."_

_That apparently was the limit of Potter's self-control. He threw his head back and laughed, and Draco watched his throat work, listened to the full, warm sound of his amusement, and smiled. He stepped into Potter's personal space and wrapped his arms around his neck, utterly delighted to find himself somewhere he never expected to be._

_Styler, if that was really his name and not some precious alias he came up with for the bar crawl, faded, presence dismissed by both of them, into the crowd._

_They had eyes only for one another, and when Potter's hand slid down Draco's back to cup his arse, it was an act of will that kept him from creaming his jeans._

oooOOOooo

The trip down the circular staircase from Hermione's office was like a magical step back in time for Harry. He hadn't been in this part of the castle since immediately after the Battle of Hogwarts, and a deep nostalgia gripped him when the Gryphon at the bottom the stairs came into view. He brushed a feather of the spread wings as he passed, smiling as the bronze beast fluttered them as if ticklish. He followed Hermione and Ron through the cut stone doorway, out into the wide hallway beyond.

"Ah, we're on the first floor now," he said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his trousers as he walked. "Interesting." The floors had always been known to change on a whim. Finding Dumbledore's turret office down in the main part of the building wasn't really that surprising.

"The castle knows how cranky she gets if she has to walk too far for her dinner," Ron quipped, falling into step beside him. Hermione nudged him in the ribs sharply with her elbow, and he grinned as he dropped his arm around her shoulders. 

The halls, warmly lit by burning sconces, weren't very crowded but it was still dinner time and the kids were probably already in the Great Hall. In another two hours those flames would dip into the over-night, dim light; he grinned when he realized he was more familiar with that level due to his 'night time excursions', as Snape had called them. The sound of hundreds of young voices reached out to them as they rounded a corner, and a few stragglers hurried toward the tall, open doors. The students were talking, laughing, and warmth flooded Harry; this was home, the only real home he'd ever known. Even the house he'd shared for more than a decade with Gin didn't give him the same feeling of warm approval the castle did, and always had. Hogwarts had been the first place to accept him as one of its own, and he'd never forget it. 

And now, two of his three kids were sitting within the warmly lit Hall, or at least he hoped so. Harry hadn't seen them since start of Fall term and wouldn't see them again for any real amount of time until Spring Hols. He picked up his pace, yearning filling him. Gin took the younger kids for Winter Hols but she was good about inviting him to join them for Christmas Eve and Christmas day at the Burrow. He went, because he didn't want Molly to disown him, but it felt weird now. Maybe it would be better this year, now that Gin was seeing her Quidditch player. He knew it was juvenile, but he was actually kind of looking forward to the pick-up game they always played after dinner on Christmas day; he'd bet that even coming up on forty he could still give that kid a run for his money.

They entered the Great Hall, Ron and Hermione in front, Harry just behind them, just as it had always been. Now that Harry thought about it, he realized the only time the configuration was different were those weeks during sixth year when Ron was doing Lavender Brown in every alcove in the castle. God, they'd been young. The same age Albus was now. 

When he wasn't engulfed in nostalgia, Harry chose to concentrate on the happier times from before the final battle. The Hall looked different now, although he supposed only people like him and Ron and Hermione really noticed. People who had watched it devastated by the vicious fight. The huge stained glass window at the end of the room, the one Snape had flown through, now depicted the silhouette of the castle in flames. The image shifted, slowly rebuilding itself until brilliant dawn light shown all around the restored towers and turrets. It was a beautifully done piece of artwork but it always made Harry's throat feel tight. In his mind he could still see the faces of the dead, lying in rows. Fred had been right in front of Dumbledore's podium, the usually animate owl with its head lowered and its eyes closed. He forced himself to take one deep breath before a high, happy voice cut through his reverie.

"Dad!!"

He looked up in time to see Ron and Hermione's daughter, Rose, hurtle into Ron's arms. Her curling red hair flew around her face and the freckles on her up turned nose were like kisses of cinnamon against her skin. 

Ron winked at Harry as he wrapped his arms around her. "Amazing how much more popular I am with my children now that they no longer live at home."

Harry forced away the dark memories as Lily appeared behind her cousin, her darker, sleeker auburn hair pulled up in a high ponytail that bounced adorably as she ran and reminded him forcefully of her mum.

"Daddy." She went up on her toes and hugged him, and Harry grinned against the side of her head as he wrapped his arms around her.

"Hey, baby girl."

She leaned back, brown eyes shining as she looked up at him. "What are you doing here?"

"Having dinner with your Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron."

"Oh, good! It's brisket tonight, with rolls and mash. And I'm betting the elves will bring you some trifle. I'll ask Winky." She patted his stomach. "At least I'll know you're getting one square meal this week." Lily had apparently decided to take over for Molly, worrying incessantly over how thin he was. Ever since the divorce she'd assigned herself the role of concerned parent, clearly believing he couldn't take care of himself. 

"Lils, I do eat, you know," he protested. 

"What? Beans on toast leaning over the sink?" She gave him a scolding look and he regarded Ron over her head.

"You been coaching her, now?"

Ron held up his hands. "Not me, Mate. Probably Mum."

"Hey, Dad."

Harry turned and found Al standing behind him, nearly as tall as Harry, best friend Scorpius Malfoy just a few steps behind him. Scorpius gave him a shy smile and ducked his head, but Harry could see that he was pale, and had dark circles under his wide gray eyes.

"There you are, Al. Hello, Scorpius."

Harry pulled Al into a rough hug, then offered Scorpius his hand. Al's black hair was a disheveled mess and his jaw shadowed with beard, Scorpius' hair was artfully tousled and his gray eyes shining. The boy smiled reservedly and shook Harry's hand. Scorpius' hands were thin and pale, and looked just like his father's. The sight of them sent a startling ache through Harry's chest. 

"Mr Potter," Scorpius offered.

"Scorp," Harry said, shaking off the surprisingly strong nostalgia, "we've talked about that."

Scorpius shook his head. "I can't call you Harry, sir. It's just not the way I was raised, not to mention my dad with skin me if he heard me."

"Your dad called me more inventive things than Harry. Trust me."

Ron snorted out a laugh. "Did he ever."

"I'm sorry, sir. I'm just really not comfortable being so informal."

"Fair enough." Uncomfortable himself, Harry looked around the half full room. A lot of the kids were still tucked in to their dinner, sitting scattered around their house tables, but they were watching Harry, Ron and Hermione, eyes wide as they whispered amongst themselves. It was a gentle reminder that to these young people, Hermione was their headmistress and Harry and Ron were their classmates Dads. It was a weird feeling. 

They were also people the kids had to study about in their History of Magic class; it was very bizarre the first time he'd read about himself in Jamie's textbook. It was no longer the one written by Bathilda Bagshot but an updated version by Hermione Granger-Weasley with a forward by Kingsley Shacklebolt. When Jamie had come to him, grinning in delight, to show him the chapter on the months they spent camping in the Forest of Dean, he'd admired the illustration of Snape's Patronus and Gryffindor's sword. 

"Dad," Jamie said, sounding scandalized. "Did Mum know you spent all those months in a tent alone with Aunt Hermione? It's just, Aunt Hermione is kind of beautiful, you know?"

Harry supposed he should have realized something was up with his sexuality when he never even once thought of her that way. 

"She knows," he said, absently turning through the chapters on the escape from Gringotts and the fire in the room of requirement. Then he groaned on finding a photo of himself that had been taken just after the final battle. He looked like he hadn't slept in weeks, hair long and pulled up in a man bun, his beard thick, blood dripping from a split in his lower lip. Truthfully, he looked like someone who belonged in jail. When he told Hermione that, she given him a sly grin.

_"You'd be amazed at the number of people who think you're very hot in the photo."_

_He grimaced. "Clearly mad people."_

_She exchanged a grin with Ron. "Clearly."_

"So, Dad." 

"Yes, Albus?" Harry turned his attention back to Al. He caught the grimace on his son's face.

"Albus? Really?"

Harry snorted. "Fine. Yes, Al?"

"You had to wear the Auror drag?"

Scorpius smacked Al's upper arm, giving him a quelling look but Al ignored him. 

"Drag?" Harry's voice dripped with disdain.

"You know what I mean. You look like you came to arrest someone."

Harry gave him a pointed look. "Well, I haven't. Not yet at least. Anything you'd like to tell me, son?" Harry was teasing, but when Al and Scorpius exchanged a startled look, Harry began to wonder if there wasn't something going on he ought to know. He angled his head and peered into Al's green eyes, but his son just shrugged. "O – kay," Harry said slowly. He'd interrogated enough suspects over the years that he could see something was up. He mentally added it to the things he'd discuss with his son during their stroll. Speaking of which… "Al, don't disappear after dinner."

"Why?" Al squinted suspiciously.

"Because I'd like a few minutes of your time, that's why," Harry said more sternly than he'd meant to. He forced down his irritation. "I'd just like a chance to catch up, all right?"

"Yeah, okay," Al agreed, but he didn't sound happy about it. He and Scorpius exchanged another wary glance. Okay, clearly something was going on.

"It's okay, you don't need to invite me along," Lily complained with a sigh. Harry looked down at her, apologetic.

"Oh, Lils, I didn't think…" 

She rolled her eyes. She was a pro at that. "Don't worry about it, Daddy. I have a study date."

Harry frowned. "Date?" She was fifteen. He wasn't ready for that yet. 

She giggled. "With _Aubrey_ , Daddy. Honestly."

"Yeah, honestly Daddy," Ron said, punching him in the shoulder. "I'm hungry. Shake off the sprogs and come eat."

"Nice, Uncle Ron," Lily said. 

"I'll 'Nice Uncle Ron' you." He yanked on her ponytail, and she laughed as she pulled away. Moments later they made their way to the head table, and he and Ron took seats on either side of Hermione's central throne. Harry raised a brow at her as he sat down.

"Oh, shut up," she scolded, and Harry grinned.

Dinner at Hogwarts was a treat whenever Harry was able to eat it, but this night it was like the elves knew there would be company and they'd gone all out. The brisket was falling from the bone, the mashed potatoes creamy and perfect, the dinner rolls fragrant and soft as a cloud. He nearly moaned with every mouthful. He didn't have any problem feeding himself, although he ate more to exist than for pleasure these days. When Winky appeared in front of him with a beautiful tureen of trifle, he nearly kissed her. 

"Ah, Winky," he said instead, "a girl after my own heart." 

It was a very weird thing to watch an elf blush.

By the time he was done with dinner, he was so stuffed he wasn't sure he could actually make it around the lake, but Al presented himself, as ordered. Harry pushed back from the table with a groan.

"Why did you let me eat so much?" He asked Hermione.

"Because you need it. Now go for a walk with Albus."

"Yes, Molly," he said dryly. She batted at him but he managed to shift out of her line of fire.

"Come back up before you leave," Ron called after him. "So we can confer on that case."

Harry nodded. There was no case they currently needed to confer on, but he knew his friends would be waiting to hear what Albus had to say. He nodded.

As he and Albus walked from the Great Hall and out through the main entry doors into the evening air, Harry could still feel the eyes of many of the kids following them. 

"These kids do know your last name, don't they?" Harry asked as one tiny girl in Ravenclaw robes stared at him in open mouthed awe. 

"Well, yeah Dad," Al answered ironically. "But it's one thing to know something, and quite another to have Harry Potter walk in on your dinner." He didn't sound at all disgruntled, but Harry couldn't help but wonder.

"Does it bother you?" he asked impulsively.

"What?"

"You know. Being…a Potter?"

Al gave him a startled look. "Why would it?"

"I don't know. Maybe the attention you get, good and bad, because of it." Harry shrugged one shoulder awkwardly.

Albus scowled at him. "Dad, are you trying to ask me if I hate being your son?"

Harry blinked. "Yeah, I guess in a way I am."

Al snorted and shook his head as they walked down the lawn, headed for the lake. The moon was rising in the distance in the clear blue sky, and the cold nip of fall was in the breeze that moved through their hair. 

"Listen, I know it hasn't been easy since your Mum and I split," Harry went on. "The press is pretty vicious. I've tried to keep them off you and your brother and sister, but there's only so much I can honestly do. And not be called the Gestapo." He didn't mean to sound so bitter, but it was one of the accusations that stung the most. His Aurors were tough, and he'd instituted some reforms that weren't popular, but he knew it was his responsibility to prevent any hint of another dark movement. Still, they weren't facists…

"Dad," Al said, stopping Harry when he would have said something else, "Lil and I are pretty well insulated here, honestly. And Uncle George just hexes anyone who tries to say anything to Jamie." He shook his head. "You and Mum worry too much."

Harry shoved his hands into his pockets as they walked. He could hear the sound of water lapping against the shoreline in the distance, and smell the cold, clear water of the lake.

"I think it's in the job description. What's your Mum said?"

"Oh, basically the same things you do. Except she's worried the other kids are giving us grief because you came out queer."

Harry felt his face heat. "Are they?"

"Not really. We aren't the only ones here with a queer parent. If you weren't so famous, no one would have even noticed." He shrugged, and Harry recognized the motion as one he made regularly himself. "And no one says anything more than once to Lily. Her Bat-Bogey Hex is notorious."

Harry chuckled. "So was her mother's."

"I'm telling ya, Dad, I'm glad she likes me. That girl is terrifying. Most of the blokes don't want anything to do with her, for fear they won't escape with their bollocks."

"Good," Harry said with satisfaction.

"Honestly, I doubt she'll date much at Hogwarts, what with Aunt Hermione and well – you. I don't hate being your offspring, but someday she might. I think it would be a bit intimidating to try to take out someone whose Aunt is Headmistress and Dad is Head Auror, you know?"

"Girls aren't put off by that bit, hmm?" Harry asked, feeling around a bit. He didn't care if Al was gay or bi or whatever, but it might lead him into a conversation about him and Scorpius. His son shook his head, his disgusted expression clear in the bright moonlight. 

"Most of them just turn to that page in the History of Magic text book, you know, the one with the picture of you with your hair up in a 'man bun'." 

Harry had taken a teasing from Al about this before. He gave him a wry look. "I seem to remember the photo you mean, son, yes."

"Yeah, well, they drool over it, sighing and asking if you're _sure_ you're gay. It's ridiculous."

"You're right; that's pretty ridiculous. I'm old enough to be their father."

"Literally. Grandfather, even." Al gave him a cheeky grin, and Harry lightly batted him on the back of the head. 

"Careful, wise arse."

"Ah, admit it, Dad. The only reason you wanted this walk is because you miss my sparkling wit and charming personality."

"Well, true as that may be," Harry said, thinking he probably wouldn't get a better opening, "I'm actually here for something else. Your Aunt Hermione asked me to talk to you."

Al stopped abruptly, turning to look at Harry, his eyes very wide. But for the scruff on his chin, he looked just as he had when he was little and been caught with his hand in the box where Jamie kept his chocolate frogs. 

"About what?"

Harry glanced out over the lake just as a long, black squid arm broke the surface, and arched through the air before disappearing once again beneath the gently moving waves. How did one broach this topic with their sixteen-year-old son? Sorry, but your Aunt is afraid you've knocked up your best friend – your _male_ best friend? He scrubbed his hand over his short hair. 

"Dad? You're scaring me, here. What's going on?" 

Harry turned back to Al to see he truly was trembling. "I'm sorry, son. I'm just not sure where to start."

Al squinted. "What could possibly…" His face slowly cleared, then became amused. "Oh, Dad. This isn't about that old – Hadrian curse thing, is it?" He clapped one of his hands over his mouth, but it couldn't contain his laughter. After a moment he didn't even bother, just laughed uproariously. It carried out over the silent lake.

Harry was struck dumb. "Al, it isn't funny."

"Oh yes it is. Come on. It's hilarious!"

Harry didn't join in his laughter and after a few moments, Albus gulped and managed to get himself under control, wiping at the tears in the corners of his eyes. "I'm sorry, but Aunt Hermione can't honestly believe…"

"She knows it's possible, and apparently one of your classmates made an appointment with her to say how worried she was about the two of you."

"Who?" Al cried, no longer amused.

"She wouldn't tell me, and if she won't tell me, trust me, she won't tell you." He could see a plan to ingratiate himself to his Aunt beginning to percolate in Al's feverish brain. "Al, you know what magic can do, particularly the old spells." Harry and his brilliant middle child had many conversations about horcruxes once he reached that chapter in his History of Magic text book. 

"I know. But Dad, Scorpius and I are just friends. Really, really good friends, but still…"

Relief flowed through Harry, loosening the tightness that had settled in his chest while he'd been listening to Hermione in her office. He truly didn't care about Al's orientation, but the whole pregnancy thing had left him feeling off center. He took a deep breath and released it slowly. 

"Okay, first of all," Al was saying, "Scorpius and I aren't gay. Not that there's anything wrong with it, we just don't swing that way. He's got a total thing for Miranda Myrtloft, and I – well, I'm still exploring my options." 

It would have been funny if Al weren't so deadly serious, and Harry bit back a smile. 

"Secondly, I don't get how anyone could even _think_ that. I mean, we're in the same house, we're roommates. If we were … _together_ together, it would be obvious. Trust me. There are two guys in our dorm room who are together, and it's hard to miss. I know you can't tell me who, okay?" And he didn't look any happier about it than Harry was. "But what made them leap to that?"

"Apparently you and Scorpius have missed first period several times the last few weeks. Someone put together the fact he's from an old pure blood family, and you have to admit Al, he doesn't look like he feels very well. Add that to missing your first class of the day and they landed on the Mas Gravitas."

"So, what? They thought he had morning sickness?"

Al began to giggle, and said out loud like that, it did sound pretty silly. This time when the smile threatened, Harry let it spread across his face. 

"Scorp is going to lose his nut," Al said when his laughter faded again. "This does sound like something one of those third-year twits would come up with, though." He laid his wrist across his forehead dramatically. "Oh, star crossed lovers, Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy. It's a Romeo and Juliet story, right down to the fact their father's being on opposite sides in the war, bitter rivals. Now, they're sons are having a _baby_ …" He began to giggle again, but Harry's humor had faded.

"I don't hate Scorpius' Dad, you know," he said softly.

"Oh, I know," Al said, waving it away. "But you did in school, and I imagine anyone who knew about your history might think that. Dad, this really is too funny."

"Okay, so it's probably something that was cooked up in a thirteen-year-old girls head." Harry gave him a stern look. "If that isn't what's going on, why are you missing class?"

Al's grin faded and now he scrubbed his hand over his head. He began shifting from foot to foot. 

"Al?"

"If I tell you, can you promise not to tell Aunt Hermione? Or Mum?"

"I can't make any promises not to tell your Mum something, you know that." Harry studied his son's anxious face. "We can negotiate about Aunt Hermione. Now spill it."

"We're working on extra credit for our potions NEWT."

Harry frowned. "Why wouldn't you want your Mum, or Aunt Hermione, to know you're doing extra credit work? She'd be thrilled, Al. And not all that surprised."

Al was the bookish Potter child, clearly taking after Harry's Mum and her love for learning. But something about this, something about Al's expression had all of Harry's parental senses tingling. 

"Albus?"

Al sighed so deeply it sounded as if it came from his toes, and was so pained, so aggrieved that Harry nearly smiled again. Not only was Al the most book smart of his three, and the quietest, he was also the one who could bring the drama if necessary. Apparently, he felt now was one of those moments.

"Well, you see Dad; it's like this. What we're doing isn't exactly… it's well, sort of..."

"Sort of what?" He was using his 'Dad' voice, and Al cringed.

"Sort of against the rules." Al was speaking very quickly now, always a sign that he was tap dancing as fast as he could, trying to talk himself out of trouble. "It's actually kind of a gray area in the law, Dad. I mean, the potion isn't precisely illegal."

Auror instincts kicked in immediately. "Albus Severus Potter, you need to spill what you boys are doing, right now."

Harry hadn't had to use his Auror persona on Al much before, and his eyes went very wide. 

"We're brewing Polyjuice."

Harry couldn't have been more gobsmacked. "You're doing _what_?"

"Brewing Polyjuice." The rapid fire delivery was back. "I know we're not supposed to, but just listen; it's a brutal hard potion to get right. But Scorpius is the best brewer, Dad. I mean, even the alchemist who came into Advanced Potions to teach thought he was some kind of savant." Harry had heard this before. He crossed his arms over his chest and braced his legs. "Anyway, we have this practical that's half our final NEWT; we're supposed to pick an Advanced potion, brew it, and then write twenty five inches on what the outcome was. We thought if we, well, _he_ brewed it correctly, which he totally would, then we could sort of… uhm…"

"Yes?" 

Harry knew he could be intimidating. He rarely used his 'Head Auror' face on his kids. Ron had told him more than once he was glad Harry never looked at him like that; he said he'd piss himself. Albus swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in his skinny neck. 

"We thought," he took a deep breath, "that it would be very cool and that we would totally get an 'O' if we sort of… took the potion and then switched places for the presentation, timing it to wear off during the verbal so that we'd turned back into ourselves in front of the professors and the adjudicators."

Harry didn't say anything, just continued to stare.

"That's why we've been missing our first class, Dad. I don't know if you're aware, but Polyjuice is wicked temperamental, and we've had to baby sit it almost every day. We just started it because fluxweed can only be picked on the full moon, and lacewing flies have to stew for 21 days. If we started it this week, we could schedule our verbal for a day in the following week, and that would put it right before hols. Then we'd have the Spring and Summer terms for independent study before we had to sit the Potions practical." His voice had trailed off toward the end, and Harry glared at him. 

"Albus, Polyjuice is a controlled, schedule four potion." Laws Harry himself had helped to craft because he knew how dangerous it was, how temperamental, and the pain it put the user through. His digestive system had been a nightmare for weeks, and so had Ron's, after their little excursion as Crabbe and Goyle. Hermione misjudged a hair on Bulstrode's robes and was hacking up hairballs for two weeks. And after watching one hair from his head result in seven copies of himself, he'd always thought the potion had the potential to be really dangerous. After all, the three of them had used it to break into the Ministry. His reasoning was justified, but for someone with bad intentions, the possibility of abuse was probable. "It is restricted under the age of seventeen because it is dangerous. If Scorpius got it wrong, it could explode. Where is this little brewing experiment taking place?"

He knew the answer before Albus responded. 

"The girls loo on the second floor. You know – "

"Moaning Myrtle's loo."

They spoke the words together, and Albus' mouth fell open in surprise.

"How did you know?"

Harry dropped his Head Auror stance, but remained firm. "That doesn't matter. What does matter is that it truly is a hazardous potion, Al. The reason it's restricted is because you could be hurt." The words were true, but he felt like a raging hypocrite for saying them. Al and Scorpius were just shy of their seventeenth birthdays; he, Ron and Hermione had been eleven and twelve the first time they'd taken Polyjuice. "You do know it tastes like Goblin piss."

Al's fear faded into delight. "That's right! You and Aunt Hermione and Uncle Ron have used it!"

"Repeatedly. It's one of the reasons it's restricted now. Turning into someone else is a serious business. It can be misused so easily…"

"But we won't. I swear." Apparently Al read Harry correctly and could see a break in his resolve. "We'll just use it for our NEWT. We never even considered turning ourselves into anyone other than each other."

"And don't," Harry said firmly. "Consider it, I mean."

"Why would we?"

Why indeed, Harry thought, remembering the crawling sensation of being in the skin of Gregory Goyle, and Albert Runcorn. Just the memory made him shudder. He propped his hands on his hips. 

"Teenagers often do things that are incomprehensible to others."

"Dad. I'm not Jamie."

It was true; Jamie would have tried the patience of a dead man. His third year at Hogwarts, he and his friends had somehow managed to break into the Three Broomsticks and steal four kegs of ale, setting up their own bar in the Gryffindor common room. He'd been thirteen at the time. Albus had never given Gin and him a moment's worry. "Okay, here's the deal Albus; I will give you permission to be involved in this experiment – " How could he deny it, honestly? "But Scorpius has to get permission from his dad, and the two of you have to do this under your Aunt Hermione's supervision."

"Yes!" Albus jumped and punched the air. 

"Which means," Harry went on sternly, as if he hadn't been interrupted, " _you_ have to ask her permission, which she would be completely within her rights to deny."

That deflated Al a bit, but not for long. It was one of the things Harry loved most about his middle child; his resilience. Al threw himself at Harry, his skinny arms wrapping around his neck.

"You're the best, Dad." 

Harry shook his head with a wary chuckle. "Yeah, yeah. For this week at least."

Al leaned back and smiled up into Harry's face, and his heart turned over. He ruffled Al's hair and as his hand dropped to his side they heard someone running along the shore toward them. They turned to find Scorpius Malfoy heading toward them, white blond hair gleaming in the moonlight. 

"Scorp, he said it's okay. I told him everything, and he gave us the go ahead."

Scorpius pulled up short, breathing hard. He pressed his hand over his heart and took several deep breaths.

"You were gone so long, I was afraid you were really in trouble," Scorpius panted. He looked at Harry. "It was my idea, Mr Potter, honestly."

"Somehow I doubt that, Scorpius, but I admire your loyalty."

Al grabbed Scorpius' thin arm and pulled him back toward the castle, Harry basically forgotten. "Dad says you have to talk to your dad, and Aunt Hermione has to supervise, but she's made the potion before, so that's perfect!" He laughed triumphantly. "Oh, and wait til you hear what Aunt Hermione thought was going on between you and me cuz we were missing first session sometimes; you're gonna die." He looked back at Harry, his grin as wide as his face. "I mean, honestly, Dad." He shuddered theatrically. "Doing anything like that with Scorp would be like kissing my brother."

"What?" Scorpius squeaked, clearly horrified. 

"Told ya, you're gonna die."

They ran up the path and around a copse of Willow trees, disappearing beyond the long fronds swaying in the slight breeze. Harry watched them go with his hands on his hips and an indulgent smile on his face. When they were gone he inhaled lake scented breeze, looking out over the water. He could hear the boys excited chatter drifting back to him, and they sounded so much alike it was impossible to tell their voices apart. He relished being the 'cool dad' for once, knowing it wouldn't last. At least he could put Hermione's mind at ease; brewing Polyjuice was against school rules, but a world away from teen pregnancy. 

And what was it Al had said? 'Doing that with Scorp would be like kissing his brother'...

The breeze off of the water chilled, lifting Harry's fringe and sending a shudder the length of his spine. It was now fully dark, and quiet down here by the water, peaceful, but something about his son's words wouldn't leave him alone. 'Kissing his brother'. It played through his head over and over, and then the possibility of it landed on him like a giant boulder. 

His brother. 

Harry gasped aloud, his hand coming up to cover his mouth. After long moments where he truly couldn't think at all, he frantically did the mental math. Al's birthday was October 11th. He'd said something to Harry once about Scorpius' birthday being either a week before, or a week after his. When Harry'd first heard the dates, he had a completely irrational, hurt reaction. How could Draco have fathered a child so close to… but that was unreasonable and patently unfair. He'd fathered Al, after all.

"Oh, God," Harry said, rubbing his hand over his face. It was insane. It couldn't be, could it? There wasn't a thing about Scorpius Malfoy that didn't look like Draco, not a single indication that he'd inherited anything from anyone else, including his mother. He was a hundred percent Malfoy, from his blond hair to his slender frame, to his wide gray eyes. There had been times over the years when Harry had looked at him and felt something like a hook just beneath his ribs, pulling and aching, and he'd had to look away from the bright young face. Memories would bubble up, and if he let himself go there, he could be lost in brooding despondency for days. It drove Ginny crazy when they were still married, because he would never tell her what was wrong.

Now he felt the shifting sand of building anxiety beneath his feet, and he took a step back as if that could stop it. Al's words wouldn't go away, though, and as mad as the whole thing was, Harry had to know. He had to.

Removing his wand from the halter strapped across his chest, he muttered _Expecto Patronum_ and white light burst from the tip, leaving a majestic white stag when it faded. The creature watched him with intelligence in his white eyes.

"Tell Hermione," He stopped. How did he word this? "Tell Hermione it isn't what she thinks, the boys are fine, and I'll explain later. I have something I have to do, and it can't wait."

The regal creature nodded and turned, bounding for the castle, leaving a white trail in its wake. Harry watched it for a moment, then looked back out over the water before he disappeared with a pop. No one was supposed to be able to _Apparate_ from inside Hogwarts grounds, but once again, the castle bent the rules for him.

oooOOOooo

Draco sat swamped in memories of that first night for so long that when he moved his left leg to stand, he had to stop to let feeling return to it. He rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, refusing to acknowledge the moisture he found there. When the brutal pins and needles of returned blood flow finally faded, Draco pushed to his feet and crossed the room, methodically restoring the waning flames on the hearth, finding a covered plate in a stasis charm on the table beside his chair. He lifted the lid. There was a lovely, crisp green salad with large shrimp and dressing on the side, and another snifter of brandy warming over the candle. He'd been so lost in thought he hadn't even heard Knobly deliver the food. He picked up his wand and vanished everything but the booze, and he took a deep drink that seared him from his throat to the bottom of his stomach.

"Master Draco was supposed to be eating that."

Knobly stood in front of him, giving him a reproachful look.

"Master Draco doesn't want to eat."

"You cannot just be vanishing Miss Cissy's china."

"It's my china, and I can be vanishing whatever the fuck I want," he snapped, then felt guilty that he'd consigned another of his mother's china plates to the ether. The set had been made fully a century before by Meisson, and pictured the Malfoy crest surrounded by white lilies. Of course, they also had ten thousand of the bloody things so he decided not to feel too badly. "Knobly," he said finally, his voice softened. "I appreciate your effort with the food, but I couldn't choke it down if I tried."

Knobly nodded solemnly. "All right Master Draco," he said. "But please, sir, please. Do not be drinking much more of the brandy? It will be making you very sick and be giving you the aching head."

Draco let out a weary chuckle. "You're right, Knobly. It will be giving me the aching head. I'll stop after this one." He probably wouldn't, but if it made the old elf feel better, a small lie couldn't hurt. 

"Good night, Master Draco."

"Good night, Knobly."

With a deep bow, the elf vanished.

Draco stared at the place he'd been until the rug he'd been standing on went hazy and out of focus and his mind drifted. He slowly sipped the brandy, thinking better than to further abuse his throat by downing it in a few gulps. When the glass was empty he set it aside. He stared at the fire for several long moments, then picked up his wand and tapped out a rhythm on the top of the end table beside him. A small hidden compartment popped out of the side, and inside of it were several dog eared wizarding photos, the figures waving or smiling or in one case, sleeping. He took them out of the shallow drawer, holding them almost reverently in his hands. They were creased and bent from the number of times he'd handled them and even though he knew he was only torturing himself, he stared at them again. 

The one on the top was of Draco himself, wearing a voluminous pale green robe, his hands cupping his distended belly. It was the one and only photograph in existence that proved he'd carried Scorpius, taken two weeks before his son was delivered. His face was thin and haggard and he had dark circles beneath his eyes. He'd been so miserable. He'd had a very difficult time carrying the baby, but somehow he'd managed a smile for his mother. There had been so many times he'd thought to throw it onto the flames, but once again he just shifted it to the bottom of the small stack. 

The next showed a newborn Scorpius as Draco cradled him to his bare chest, his tiny tuft of white hair still damp from his first bath, his little hand on Draco's neck. They were both sound asleep, Draco still in a fugue from the potions used for the caesarian section employed to deliver the baby. They'd been in Switzerland, in a wizarding hospital high in the Alps, one of the few places on earth that would deliver a child conceived under _Mas Gravitas_. Draco had met three other pregnant wizards there, waiting for their children to be born, and for a few short weeks he hadn't felt like an utter freak show. He touched Scorpious' newborn face and shifted the stack to the last photo.

It showed two young men, one dark, one blond. The dark haired man had a short scruff on his square chin and longish curling black hair. He wore tortoise shell, rectangular glasses and he smiled shyly at the camera. The blond wore his pale hair layered and soft around his long, thin face and his pointed chin was lifted in a slightly arrogant angle. Draco shook his head as he ran his finger over the young faces; Gods, they'd been children. It was only a few weeks later when he found out what that fling with Potter had cost him, and given him. In the end, no matter how much he wished otherwise, it was a fling and nothing more. He hadn't had so much as a note in seventeen years.

_The night they met in the bar, they'd rubbed against one another on the dance for until they couldn't stand it any longer, then slipped outside and Apparated straight to Potter's hotel room for some of the most earth moving, cataclysmic sex of Draco's life. They'd fucked one another's brains out for nearly two weeks, neither counting the days, or the hours, simply taking it as it came. During one lull he'd asked Potter about Ginny, but all he got in return was a sharp explanation that he and Ginevra were 're-evaluating their marriage'. After that, he didn't want to ask about their toddler; he wanted to pretend the child didn't exist. Potter wasn't very forthcoming, and Draco really didn't want to know. It was a delicate balance, this thing they were doing, and Draco wanted as much of it as he could get, for as long as he could get it and if that meant he didn't know anything about Potter's marriage, so be it._

_Potter got up each morning and went to Auror training, and Draco called room service, popping into the Manor for a change of clothes once or twice, reassuring his mother he wasn't involved with a serial killer who was going to toss his body in the Thames. At night Potter was an insatiable but tender lover, and Draco an appreciative recipient. They spent most of the time fucking, but they also talked a bit after that first night and Draco found himself surprised by Potter's humor, and intelligence. He'd always thought he was hot, and powerful as all hell, but not particularly bright. He was surprised but delighted to be wrong._

_They talked about a wide myriad of things, touching briefly on their childhoods before Hogwarts; Harry was amused by Draco's portrayal of himself as an obnoxious Little Lord Fauntleroy in short velvet pants and a picture hat. Draco was horrified to learn about the Muggles who'd raised Potter, and how they'd treated him._

_"Didn't they know who you were?" Draco asked, dismayed. Potter had just laughed._

_"Draco, they didn't care. To them, I was just somebody else's burden, dumped on their doorstep. It was earn my keep or go out with the rubbish."_

_From the beginning, the animosity of their school days was absent. They didn't varnish over their histories or attempt to re-invent the wheel; they were young and horny, but they also craved affection, on both sides. They screwed, then slept wrapped around each other, so close it was impossible to tell where one body began and the other ended. To Draco's dawning dismay and utterly without his permission, he fell in love with the gentle, passionate man who held him as if he could chase his demons away. They'd had two weeks out of time, two weeks of pure, raw happiness._

_Mostly they stayed naked but Draco did occasionally get dressed, just out of principal. When he was in the hotel room, Potter preferred boxer shorts or nothing at all, and Draco certainly appreciated the view. Auror training was good for him, honing his long, slender body, etching muscles into his back, sides, and stomach. His shoulders were broad and his hips narrow, and he fucked like a God. Draco, a huge fan of the muscles above a man's hipbones, had learned in wizard biology they were called an inguinal crease, and were actually two ligaments that originated from the hips and only popped when a man was down to a ridiculously low level of body fat. Draco had them, but nothing like Potter. They stood out when they fucked, flexing beneath the hard muscles of his stomach. He also had a thick thatch of tight black curls at the base of a lovely, thick cock, and Draco loved to run his fingers through the springy curls when they were lying in bed, completely fucked out. Potter liked Draco's dusky blond pubes, too, seemingly fascinated by the soft, curling hair and his long, slender prick. He also loved to give head, which Draco approved of whole-heartedly._

_Draco went to the Manor for more clothes on the morning of the fourteenth day. He'd needed more boxers and wanted comfortable flannel pyjamma pants; if he was going to lounge around the hotel room all day, he was going to at least be covered and comfortable. He'd already met room service wrapped in nothing but a sheet once, and the smirk on the bell hop's face made him feel like some sugar daddy's kept boy. Not that he really minded so much. There was something to be said for being kept by Harry Potter._

_He popped into the Apparition point in Diagon and exited back into Muggle London through the Leaky, strolling the eight blocks to Potter's hotel. It was a chilly enough day and Draco could see his breath as he walked, his hands shoved into the pockets of his wool coat and a FleroM black leather duffle bumping his hip with each step. He entered the lobby with a sigh of relief as the warm air brushed his chilled cheeks, and feeling brazen, he gave the bell hop of the 'nothing but a sheet' incident a sassy wave as the elevator doors slid closed._

_He entered Potter's room with a key card. It was something of a 'mini suite', with a small sitting room separate from the bedroom. He crossed the threshhold, thinking Potter would be at the Ministry, but he could immediately hear the television in the bedroom._

_"Harry?" he called. There was no answer and Draco frowned as he set his duffle on an arm chair and unbuttoned his coat, walking into the bedroom. He stopped abruptly just inside the door. Harry was sitting on the side of the bed, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Draco's heart sank like a stone. "Harry?" he repeated softly, and saw the broad shoulders encased in his Auror uniform rise and fall in a deep sigh. Harry dropped his hands and turned his head._

_Draco didn't think he'd ever seen such desolation in a pair of eyes, but Potter's feelings had always been written all over his face. Draco learned to hide his emotions very young; it simply wasn't done to be too open – 'stiff upper lip' hadn't been a cliché in his home. It was a lesson Potter had apparently never learned. Their eyes held for a moment, and then he looked back down at the floor between his feet._

_"For Merlin's sake, Harry; what's going on?"_

_Harry stood abruptly, still not turning to face Draco._

_"I have to go," he said, his voice rough._

_"Go… where?" Draco asked, but even then he realized it was pointless._

_"Home." Draco stiffened and Harry cleared his throat. "Ginny's pregnant."_

_Draco felt the air rush out of him as if someone had punched him in the stomach. He stared at Harry's broad back as his own body went numb._

_"Oh." It was all he had, apparently, because no other words came._

_They stood there for a long time until Potter made a raw sound and turned, closing the distance between them in a few long strides. He grabbed Draco's shoulders and pulled him in, covering his mouth and kissing him with the same passion and intensity that had marked their love-making from the beginning. Only now, there was desperation on both sides. Draco wrapped his arms around Harry's neck and kissed him back, their tongues in a wild tangle and their breathing harsh. One of Harry's hands speared into Draco's hair, fisting around the silky strands and holding him, his beard scoring Draco's soft skin as he made savage love to his mouth. Eventually their lips parted and Harry leaned his forehead against Draco's, breathing hard._

_"I have to go," he said finally, as if the words were torn out of him._

_"Harry…"_

_"Don't." Harry leaned back enough to look into Draco's eyes, and he cupped his face in his palm. He rubbed his thumb gently beneath Draco's swollen lips and studied his face as if memorizing it. Draco could see the words he wanted to say reflected in his eyes but he didn't speak again. Finally Harry pulled away and left through the sitting room, closing the suite door softly behind him._

_Draco stared at the door for a long time, unable to move._

_Two weeks later, he started throwing up in the mornings._

Touching the face of the dark-haired man in the photo with a tender brush of his thumb, Draco sighed. Irritated at his sentimentality, he dropped the pictures back into the drawer and pushed it closed. He was startled moments later when Knobly popped into the space just in front of him. Draco's heart slammed into his ribs.

"Jesus, Knobly, you scared me to death."

When Draco looked, he realized that the elf was pale and trembling. 

"What's the matter with you?"

"You is having a visitor, Master Draco, sir."

"What?" He wasn't expecting anyone, but then he hadn't expected Blaise earlier. "Is it Blaise?" he asked. Maybe his friend had come back.

Knobly shook his head, his large ears trembling. "No, sir."

"Well, then who is it?"

"It is being the Head Auror, sir," the elf answered, sounding almost reverential, and Draco wasn't sure how many more of these little shocks his heart could take in one night.

"Potter. He's here."

"Head Auror Harry Potter is standing at the front gates, wishing to see Master Draco. What should Knobly be doing?" 

His obvious fear, with just a bit of awe thrown in, irritated Draco. 

"Well, first of all you shouldn't be getting hysterical. He's just a man."

"A man who is killing a Dark Lord, pardon my saying, Master Draco."

"There is that. Well, don't just stand there, then. Let him in."

Draco wasn't sure why he didn't tell Knobly to send the bastard away, but he couldn't. There was sick sinking in his stomach, but even so, he couldn't send him away. No doubt Potter had heard the tattle circulating at Hogwarts. With Granger being Headmistress, he was in no doubt she'd heard every snippet of rumor that ran through the old place. There were probably even ghosts who would run to her to snitch, he thought bitterly. 

"Fuck."

He pushed out of his chair, picking up his wand. "Accio tie and waistcoat," he said, running his hand down his torso and pulling in his stomach. No matter how much running or how many bloody sit ups he did, sixteen years later his belly was still soft. It didn't stick out or anything, but the waistcoat would give him a bit more cover. 

He heard an almost imperceptible 'whoosh' and a black silk tie and black wool waistcoat sailed through the open sitting room door. Draco caught them and pulled up his white collar, looping the tie around his neck. While it formed itself into a perfect Windsor knot Draco shoved down his sleeves and buttoned them quickly. He had about five minutes until Potter walked in the door and he wanted to at least appear put together. He slid into the waistcoat and buttoned it, snapped his fingers at his trousers and sleeves to remove the wrinkles from sitting on the floor, then crossed the room to stand before the large mirror that hung over a side table. He stared at himself in consternation.

His hair was tousled and he quickly ran his fingers through it, but that didn't take away the lines at the edge of his eyes or the pallor from his cheeks. He looked old, he thought with dismay. Old, and tired. He used a quick glamour, smoothing out the wrinkles and putting a bit of color into his cheeks, and it helped a small amount but still… He was a forty-one-year-old man, and he looked every inch of it.

Christ, what was he doing?

oooOOOooo

Harry stood at the elaborate gates that led into the grounds of Malfoy Manor, waiting for the elf to come back. Absently studying the masterfully fashioned wrought iron, he remembered the last time, the only time, he'd seen those gates before. He'd been seventeen and a snatcher had his collar in a punishing grip, tugging him down the long drive, Ron and Hermione being herded behind him. He'd been so scared, they all had been, but they'd brazened it out. That was the day Malfoy hadn't identified them, even though Harry could tell he'd known them. They'd talked about that one night in bed, after a marathon screwing.

_Harry rolled onto his side, utterly unconcerned about his nudity. Draco was naked, too, and Harry ran his hand over his chest, his fingers darker against the pale skin, tracing the fine white lines that ran from his collar bone to his hip. They hadn't talked about those either._

_"Why didn't you tell Bellatrix who I was, that day at the Manor?" he murmured. "You knew it was me; I could tell."_

_Draco sighed and rolled up onto his side to face him, his head resting on his hand, mirroring Harry's position. "Because I didn't want to die, Potter, and from what I could see you were our best shot."_

_"You didn't want a whole new world under 'Lord Voldemort'?" He put a snotty twist on the name._

_Draco snorted. "I never did. I could see the bastard was mad as George the third. And like I'd have lived to see it, at any rate. One afternoon I would have breathed the wrong way and he'd have AK'd me on the spot. The only reason he kept any of us around as it was is that he was living in our house and wanted it to look like we'd **invited** him." He picked at the bottom sheet, then smoothed the resulting tenting with his hand. "My father probably did invite him, now I think about it. Or my crazy arse aunt." He shuddered, and Harry saw gooseflesh break out over his smooth pale skin. He sat up and pulled the bedding up over them, smoothing it over Draco's shoulder. _

_"Such a gentleman," he teased._

_"Bite me."_

_"I'll be glad to comply. Just tell me where to sink my teeth."_

_Harry laughed. "Blood thirsty bastard."_

_"You knew that before you fucked me the first time." He leaned forward to suck on one of Harry's small, copper collared nipples before pulling off with a wet 'pop'. It pebbled satisfactorily._

_Harry made a soft sound of pleasure as Draco brushed the peak of his nipple with his thumb. "You know," he said, "you probably changed the outcome of the war by stalling the way you did, that day at your house. Riddle would have killed us on sight."_

_"Why do you call him that?"_

_"What, Riddle?"_

_Draco nodded._

_"Because it was his name," Harry answered. "Lord Voldemort was an alias he adopted, just to scare people. His name was Tom Riddle and in truth, he wasn't anything special. If he had been, I wouldn't have been able to take him out with an Expelliarmus."_

_Draco studied him solemnly. "Potter, you took him out with an Expelliarmus not because he wasn't anything special, but because you were."_

"Master Draco will be seeing Head Auror Potter."

The elf's wizened voice startled Harry but he managed not to jump. The short creature in black livery but for his bare feet touched his long thumb nail to the gates and after a moment they slid silently open. The long walk to the house was made in silence but for the crunch of the crushed shell drive beneath Harry's boots; he wondered if it hurt the elf's feet. He led Harry into the house through totally different doors than the ones they'd been taken through before. This must be the main entrance, Harry thought, studying the twelve-foot-tall doors with curiosity. 

Malfoy Manor was a magnificent country manor house, but much of it was dark. There was one room off to the end of the main wing where the windows were lit, but that was the only one. The main doors swung open on well-oiled hinges as the elf approached, and closed behind them once they were inside. It was a bit creepy, to be honest. The elf led Harry through the cavernous entry, then down a hallway to another, smaller set of elaborate pocket doors. Harry's heart was pounding, he was short of breath and his palms were damp. 

Harry'd seen Draco a handful of times since the morning they parted after their two week idyll. He'd seen him across the stacks of books in Borgin and Burkes one year when he'd been Christmas shopping for Hermione, and at King's Cross every year when he'd taken his kids to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. He'd watched Draco covertly, longing an ache in his chest he tried very hard not to show. 

It wasn't until after he and Ginny split that Harry really checked out what was going on in Draco's life, with all of the resources at his command as Head Auror. He had a secret set of files in the locked bottom drawer of his desk, but he'd never told anyone about them, not even Ron and Hermione. Harry craved information, and even though he knew he was violating Draco's privacy, learning what he could about his life was like an addiction. He knew when Lucius died in Azkaban and when Draco's mother passed; he'd even slipped into St Aloysius Cathedral For the Magical Familiar in Wiltshire after Narcissa's funeral began and left before it ended. He just wanted an opportunity to see the tall, austere man in the black overcoat, the white-haired, serious child at his side. 

Harry wondered at the time where the boy's mother was; she didn't attend the funeral and never came to King's Cross. He found out she and Draco had only been married a short time, bitterly assuming they were together just long enough for her to conceive Scorpius and for him to be born, and for her to receive a healthy divorce settlement. He'd thought it was probably a pure blood thing, just enough physical contact for an heir but no emotion on either side. He'd hated Draco for that. Now he no longer knew what to think.

He knew Draco had reconciled with his Aunt Andromeda, and that he saw Teddy Lupin fairly frequently, information he'd learned on his visits to his godson. Ted really liked Draco, and chattered about him brightly. Andromeda was more circumspect, but told Harry she was glad to have him back in her life. 

Harry wished he could say the same, but kept his distance, vowing to leave Draco alone unless he contacted Harry first. He didn't, and Harry tried to let him go, let the memories go, but it was impossible. Those two weeks stood out like a utopia in the rest of his grey life; other than the days the kids were born and a Healer placed a newborn into his arms, it the one time he'd been truly happy. He loved being a father. He loved holding babies, rocking them, feeding them a bottle. He loved reading toddlers' stories, feeling the trust in them as they fell asleep against his chest. He loved putting his kids on their first broom, teaching them rudimentary magic, being the one they came to because Gin was too busy. Putting them on the train to Hogwarts yanked the heart from his chest, every single time. Now, there was another child who just might be his, and he felt a bit as if he'd been robbed of all of those special moments. 

The second set of doors slid open in front of them, and the elf held up his hand. 

"Please be waiting here, Head Auror Harry Potter, sir."

"Of course," Harry deferred politely, taking a step back. Anticipation made his mouth dry. 

The elf stepped into the room and carried on a short conversation, and the soft responses in answer to his wizened, croaking voice made Harry's heart pound. After several moments the elf was back.

"Master Draco will be seeing you now." He bowed and disappeared, and Harry rubbed his damp palms on the black wool trousers covering his hips before he straightened and stepped into the room. 

Draco was sitting in a red leather wingback chair next to the fire, his hands the only indication he wasn't simply the well-bred country gentleman at home that he appeared to be. His long legs were casually crossed, his black boots gleaming in the firelight. He was wearing an expensive white button-down and a black silk tie, and an elegant waistcoat neatly buttoned all of the way down. He looked calm and relaxed, but his fingers gave away his nerves, gripping the arms of the chair hard enough they were whitened at the tips. It probably said more about Harry's character than Draco's that the small sign of tension made him feel better. He stood near the doors and waited. 

"What can I do for you, Potter," Draco finally asked, the cut crystal tone of his posh voice bringing back years of memories. It was his 'school voice', Harry thought. Very different than the voice he used with a lover. 

"Aren't we beyond Potter and Malfoy?" he asked. 

"Are we?"

"I rather thought so. I've had my tongue up your arse, after all."

He saw Draco inhale sharply and swallow hard, but Harry didn't think he was offended by the frank language. 

"So you have. Is that all it takes for familiarity to breed, then? Sex acts that go a bit beyond the normal blow in the men's loo?"

"A bit beyond? That's one way to put it." Harry raised a brow. "I'd think two weeks of sleeping wrapped in someone's arms might lead to the parties involved at least being on a first name basis."

Draco snorted and looked away. "You would." He gestured negligently toward the matching chair across from his. "Have a seat, _Harry,_ he said dryly. "Unless you'd rather stand there by the doors."

"Thank you." He pushed his hands deep into his trouser pockets as he affected a calm he didn't feel and crossed the room. He stopped to stand in front of the chair, studying Draco's face. He'd been an Auror more than twenty years; he knew the signs of a glamour when he saw one, and he felt a bit of a boost at the thought Draco had bothered. Would a person bother for an old school mate he hadn't spoken to in years? He probably should have himself, Harry thought as he ran his hand over his rough jaw. He hadn't even shaved that morning. Draco traced the path of Harry's hand with his eyes, then he licked his lips and looked away.

"Brandy, Potter?" Draco asked. 

"No, thank you. I will take a glass of water, if you have it."

"Turned into a teetotaler?" Draco asked wryly. Harry had enjoyed a scotch and soda seventeen years ago, but people did change.

"Hardly." Harry gave him a slight smile. "I think I'd like to keep my wits about me, is all."

Draco arched a brow. "Fine. I'm sure we can manage water. Do sit, will you please? You're looming."

"Sorry." Harry removed his hands from his pockets and lowered himself to sit as casually as he could in the other wingback chair. His heartbeat still echoed in his ears.

"Knobly," Draco said softly. The old elf appeared. "Mr Potter would like _water_."

Large green eyes swivelled to him. "Just water, Harry Potter sir?"

Harry nodded. "Yes. Thank you, Knobly."

He gave a deep bow. "You is being most welcome, Harry Potter, sir." He disappeared and was back quickly with Harry's water, then was gone again. 

Harry took a sip of the water in an attempt to loosen his tongue from the roof of his mouth. 

"So, did you have to arrive in full regalia?" Draco said finally, his tone snide. "Was that an attempt to intimidate me, or frighten my staff?"

"Neither." Harry set his glass aside. "I was at work before I received a call, asking me to come to Hogwarts."

He saw Draco's shoulders stiffen and his face pale in spite of the glamour. "Why? Is…" He hesitated. "Are the boys all right?"

"If there was anything wrong with Scorpius, Hermione would have fire-called you. And I find it interesting how you assume it must include both of them."

Draco's eyes shifted away from Harry's. "Well, unless something has changed, they're all but joined at the hip." He seemed regret the words the moment he'd spoken them, and rubbed his hand over his face. "Potter, I doubt you're here for a social call; there must be something going on involving Scorpius and Albus."

"You assume I didn't just want to see you?"

Draco's eyes jerked back, and there was anger in them. "You haven't for seventeen years."

Harry returned the angry glare. "Neither have you."

"I believe you were married and had fathered yet another sprog, or did I mis-read the _Prophet_?"

Harry forced down his irritation. "I did, and I'm not sorry." He looked at Draco pointedly. "I love my children."

"Well, bully for you," Draco snapped. "I love mine, too. Which is why I want you to tell me what the fuck you're doing here."

"There is something involving the boys." Harry let the words hang and watched Draco's emotions move over his face. He really was so very easy to read, if you knew what to look for. When they'd been at school Harry had never been able to see what Draco was thinking, but after those two weeks he could see everything in his eyes. There was simmering rage, but there was fear, too. Clearly, he was very afraid of something. Harry had a pretty good idea what.

"I will fucking hex you," Draco burst out finally. Harry fought the absurd impulse to laugh. He decided he'd made Draco wait long enough.

"There was some gossip floating around the castle, insinuating that they might have found themselves caught in something called the 'Bargain with Hadrian'. I won't insult your education about matters involving pure blood tradition. I assume you know what it is?"

Draco's shoulders were so stiff it looked painful. "I'm familiar with it, yes." His voice was just above a whisper, and Harry almost felt sorry for him. Almost. 

"Albus and Scorpius are doing an advanced project for their Potions NEWT, which has caused them to miss first hour a couple of days a week. Apparently, that led certain little pure bloods to believe…"

Draco sat back in his chair, his body relaxing just a touch. He was doing a masterful job of hiding his relief. "I knew about the chatter." 

"You've already heard this?" 

"Blaise was here earlier. His niece -- "

"Sabine," Harry provided with a twist of his lips.

"Yes. She's always been a horror with her nose in everyone else's business. She sent Blaise's mother a letter, and she contacted him. Our mothers were great friends at school, and she knew he and I had maintained our friendship. He was here earlier to inform me about the gossip."

"You don't seem overly concerned about that gossip."

"What?" He scoffed, still managing to maintain his cool. Harry was impressed. "Some ridiculous rumour about an old curse that could result in a man turning up preggars? Please, Potter. It stretches the limits of credulity. Besides, Scorpius is straight."

"Well, for the record, it isn't true. They've been babysitting a batch of Polyjuice potion in the second floor girl's loo."

"Not…" Draco's voice trailed off.

"Yeah. Moaning Myrtle's loo."

Draco rubbed his hand over his face. "Christ. The irony is astounding, and they have no idea."

"No, they don't. At least, Albus doesn't. I have no idea if you've discussed where your scars came from or not."

Draco closed his eyes on a pained grimace. "I told him they were the result of an accident when I was in school." His lashes fluttered as he looked back at Harry. "It's not even a lie."

"It isn't." Harry agreed. "But it's a kindness I'm not sure I deserve."

"It wasn't for your benefit, Potter." 

Harry nodded. He deserved that. 

"Gods, the little idiots." Draco ran his hand over his face. "Well, apparently the Potter didn't fall far from the tree then, did he?"

"Meaning?"

"Meaning he won't be the first Potter to dabble with Polyjuice."

"Ah." It was one of the stories they'd shared during those two weeks. They'd laughed together uproariously over the fact Crabbe and Goyle ate the drugged sweets in the first place, and Harry swore him to secrecy over Hermione spending two weeks in hospital, coughing up fur balls. "You should know I gave them permission to finish their project."

"Dammit, Potter. You can't give _my_ son permission for anything, despite being almighty Head Auror." The words were said bitterly. "That has to come from me. And are you bloody insane? You might not care if Albus blows himself up, but I'd rather like to have Scorpius around for the rest of my natural life. They could be badly hurt if that potion goes awry…"

"It won't," Harry said firmly. 

"How can you possibly know that?"

"Because apparently, the Malfoy didn't fall far from the tree, either. Al assures me your son is, and I quote, 'bloody brilliant' at potions."

"Well, he is good, but he's still just sixteen…"

"You do recall what we were doing at sixteen?"

Draco shuddered. "Of course I do," he snarled. "Not a day goes by that I don't remember how bloody stupid I was. I've spent more than twenty years trying to live down the shit I did, to make sure Scorpius never lives with the kinds of regrets I carry."

Harry leaned forward; his hands linked as easily as he could manage between his knees. 

"Am I one of those regrets?" He said the words calmly, but he didn't feel calm. He could tell Draco didn't either; he saw his pulse jump in his throat, saw it pick up a throbbing rhythm. His tie bobbed when he swallowed.

"What?" Draco's voice sounded raw.

"You heard me," Harry said, his eyes glued to Draco. "Am I one of the things you've spent at least seventeen of those years trying to forget about?" He stared unblinking into Draco's eyes. "Or was that impossible with a living reminder of those two weeks at the Corinthia under foot every day for the first eleven years of his life?"

Draco withdrew slowly, his back and shoulders going rigid. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he managed stiffly.

"Yes, you do," Harry retorted. "I'm Scorpius' father."

Draco shot to his feet, and he was shaking so hard Harry could see the tremors in his legs. " _I_ am Scorpius' father, you bastard. No one else. Me."

Harry stood, forcing Draco back a step. He now understood what Draco meant about 'looming'; he didn't like sitting while Draco stood over him, either. "I wasn't insinuating you weren't. What do you think I meant? That you're his _mother_?"

Draco gasped, and lightning fast struck out, slapping Harry hard across the face. The sound resonated in the room, and Harry winced. He rubbed his cheek, and manipulated his jaw. 

"Ow." He said mildly. "That hurt."

"Good," Draco sounded breathless, his emotions raw. "I ought to hex you seven ways to hell. I ought to leave you in a thousand pieces on the floor. I ought to send you back to your children in a matchbox."

"Now you're starting to sound like your father." 

Harry saw the fury flare as Draco sprang at him, fists raised. Harry counted himself lucky Draco's wand was behind him on the end table. 

Harry caught Draco's right hand as it swung at his face, holding it easily. Draco struggled with him, making inarticulate frustrated noises, and Harry managed to get his left wrist in a hard grip, too. 

"Let me go, goddamn you," Draco snarled, struggling. "You've proved you're stronger than me. Congratulations. Now let me go."

"Why? So you can black my eye? I don't think so."

"Black your eye?" Draco snarled between his teeth. "I want to kill you."

"Why?"

Draco tried to kick him in the shins, and Harry stepped easily out of the way. He sparred with the younger guys in his department often, and he was in excellent shape, his reflexes faster. He twisted Draco's left arm into an uncomfortable angle and with a change to his centre of gravity and a heel to the top of Draco's foot, landed him on his back on the floor. Harry's knees braced either side of his ribcage and he pinned Draco's wrists above his head. 

Draco bucked up, trying to dislodge him. He was furious, but Harry had two stone of muscle on him. The best he could do was knee Harry in the back.

"Stop that," Harry ordered.

"No." Draco's knee connected perilously close to Harry's kidneys, and he pressed his thumb hard into the soft place on Draco's wrist, just below his palm. Draco cried out.

"You fucker, that _hurts_!"

"Well, now we're even, then."

Draco turned his face to the side but not before Harry saw the sheen of angry tears in them. 

"Even, he says," Draco growled. "Not hardly. You may be the ruddy boy who lived and all around Ministry golden child but I…" He cut off the flow of words, biting his lower lip. 

"You, what?" Harry demanded, but Draco wouldn't answer. Harry leaned his weight harder onto Draco's thin arms. "Tell me what I did to you, aside from fuck you blind for two weeks."

"Gods, I hate you," Draco spat. 

"Why?" Harry demanded. "Tell me why you hate me so much, other than sheer principal. Because I know you didn't hate me seventeen years ago. We had a mutually satisfying two weeks and parted. So what?"

Draco gasped softly. "So easy for you, was it?"

Harry stared into the pale, furious face beneath his. It hadn't been easy; it had been agony. He and Gin tried to rekindle their romance; Lily was a product of a night out and a bottle and a half of wine, but it hadn't worked. Afterwards they'd done the civilized thing and 'stayed together for the kids' until Lily went to Hogwarts, but it was a mistake. His children's parents were coolly polite to one another. Gin knew he'd had an affair with someone; he didn't even bother to deny it. Apparently they were pretty good actors, though, as the kids and extended family didn't seem to notice the difference. Other than Hermione and Ron; they knew he'd done something stupid but they hadn't talked about it. Still, he'd bet his back molars Hermione knew. 

Gin didn't know who Harry slept with for a decade after it happened. That had been the true final blow to what was left of their marriage; she said if he wanted to fuck a man, why was he still with her? He didn't really have an answer. 

"No," Harry answered finally. "It wasn't easy. It was a nightmare."

"Oh, spare me. Poor Potter, stuck in a loveless marriage but still managed to fuck the ball and chain often enough to get another little Potter on her. You had the wife and family and the picket fence, and I had…" Draco bit his lower lip hard enough he drew blood. A spot of brilliant red welled beneath one of his bright white canines.

Harry shifted the grip of his hands until one of his held both of Draco's, then moved his other hand to Draco's jaw. He shook Draco's chin. "Don't hurt yourself, you idiot." 

"Too late, Potter," he laughed cynically. "Way too fucking late."

Harry studied the hostile expression on Draco's handsome face, and he couldn't stand it. Realizing it was probably the dumbest thing he'd done in his life, he leaned down and covered Draco's mouth with his. 

Draco gasped into his mouth. 

Harry tasted the coppery tang of blood, then wasn't sure if it was Draco's or his own when Draco bit his tongue. Harry jerked back. 

"How dare you," Draco growled, his legs flailing. Fortunately he didn't connect with anything critical to Harry's continued well-being. 

"How dare I?" Harry growled. "I dare because I've been in love with you for seventeen fucking years, you stupid wanker, and you carried and gave birth to my son without ever bothering to tell me!"

Draco went still beneath him, and it nearly killed Harry when his pointed jaw began to tremble in his hand. "Liar."

"What?" Harry frowned, confused.

"You're – a – liar," Draco repeated. "You aren't in love with me."

"Draco." Harry ran his thumb beneath his lower lip, wiping away a small smear of blood. "I am." He leaned down again, holding Draco's gaze. "I always will be, God help me."

He closed the distance between their lips and this time he kissed Draco with everything in him. It took a few moments, but he felt the precise instance Draco went soft and began to kiss him back, and he nearly wept with relief. He released Draco's arms to hold his face in one hand and spear his fingers through the fine blond hair with the other. "Draco," he said against his lips. "Love."

Draco groaned and his arms came up around Harry's torso, his hands curling in the red wool of his Auror jacket. He pulled back just enough to speak against Harry's cheek. "You're an arse."

"Takes one to know one."

"Oh, just don't speak. You only make it worse. Come back here." He slid his hand up Harry's back and neck, long fingers sinking into his hair. He clutched it hard. 

Harry sank down onto Draco's angular body, stretching his legs out along Draco's and bringing their groins into searing contact. 

"Oh, God," Draco said against his lips. "Oh, you fucking git. Why is it you? Why did it have to be you?"

"I don't know, it just is." On fire with wanting the man beneath him, Harry kicked Draco's legs apart and settled more fully against him. He could feel the hard length of Draco's prick, and he shifted so that their cocks were lined up, side by side. Draco gasped and spread his legs further apart, lifting one to hook over Harry's hip, moving desperately beneath him. Harry changed the angle of their kiss to deepen it and rolled his hips forward. 

"Draco," he said feverishly against the mouth clinging to his. "I want you so fucking bad."

"Does it appear I'm trying to fight you off?" Draco gripped his hair harder.

"Not anymore. But if I get out my prick, are you going to attempt to yank it off?"

Draco laughed raggedly. "Only one way for you to know, Potter."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Harry muttered, but he lifted his hips and tore open his flies before making short work of Draco's. When he took out Draco's long, curved, beautiful cock, he stroked the length of it reverently. "The most beautiful fucking cock I've ever seen in my life."

"Seen that many, huh?"

"I lived in a dorm with five other guys for six years. You trying to tell me you haven't seen a fair few?"

"Oh, don't talk!" Draco growled. "Just fuck."

"Yeah, fine. Lube?"

Draco bit down on Harry's lower lip. "No. Haven't had the need."

He looked momentarily startled that he'd made the admission, his eyes widening. 

"Yeah. Well, me neither," Harry said. "I haven't wanted anyone else."

Draco blinked up at him as if unsure what to say. He finally licked his lips, his eyes riveted to Harry's.

"I know. Me neither," he whispered.

Harry's heart lurched, and he released Draco's hard-on just long enough to lick a stripe over his palm. Then he took both of their cocks into his hand, curling his fingers around them. "Come here, you beautiful bastard," he whispered, then pushed his free hand between Draco's arse and the floor. He fought through layers of clothing and shoved his hand down the back of Draco's pants. Lifting Draco up against his body, he held the two cocks tight as he began to move against Draco, a long slow thrust and drag. Draco moaned, his legs tightening around Harry's hips. 

Harry wanted it to be as earth shattering as what amounted to a hand job could be. He wanted to rock Draco's world. But he knew it was going to go too fast, that he wasn't going to be able to hold out long. He firmed his grip, squeezing both cocks, and he whimpered at the sensation. God, it felt good after all this time. Draco's body beneath his, the pointed hipbones against his, no less prominent for the clothing between them. The backs of his fingers brushed Draco's soft pubes and he had to see them, touch them, taste him. He gave Draco one last, lingering kiss, then shifted down his angular body and held Draco's lovely prick at a ninety degree angle from his belly. Initially Draco moaned in complaint when Harry released him, but then he cried out in welcome when Harry opened his mouth and then his throat to take him in. His fingers threaded gently through a neatly trimmed patch of soft medium blond curls. 

It had been so long since Harry had tasted prick. In fact, the last one he'd had in his mouth was this one, and the taste, the musky smell, almost had him popping off right then. He sucked hard, drawing up and swirling his tongue around the head, slipping it beneath the cuff of foreskin to press against Draco's slit. He tasted a small burst of pre-come, and he joined his hand in motion with his mouth, moving it up and down, bobbing his head. Draco's hand, still in the curls on his head, tightened.

"Fuck," he cried out, his hips jumping. "Fucking hell. I can't… I won't last long."

Harry hummed around his length and he felt Draco's thighs quivering. He pulled off long enough to whisper, "I won't either. I've wanted this so fucking long," then he pressed back down until the tip of Draco's cock was against the back of his throat. He moved his fingers from Draco's pubes to his balls, rolling them against his palm, then drew up and stuck his index finger into his mouth alongside Draco's prick, giving it a sloppy wetting. When he withdrew it and rubbed it over the furled skin of Draco's arsehole, he cried out again.

"Oh, fuck," Draco gasped desperately. "Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck."

Harry pulled off and licked him from base to tip. "As close as I can get without lube."

"Oh, God." Draco's voice shook and his arse clenched. "I don't care, I just need you inside of me."

"I won't hurt you," Harry said firmly. "Besides, we've got time." He lifted his head to look down into Draco's eyes. "Please, tell me we've got time."

Draco returned his stare, breathing heavily through his mouth. He swallowed. "Yes, Harry, we've got time."

Harry made an inarticulate sound of relief and went back down onto Draco's cock, sucking hard as he rubbed his finger over Draco's arsehole before pressing slowly in, curling it up. He found the spongy knob of Draco's gland, and began to stroke it in a slow, steady rhythm. Harry remembered how hypersensitive Draco was inside, and he remembered the times he'd brought him off, just like this. It made his prick harder.

"Harry," Draco cried out, pushing his arse back down onto Harry's finger, "I'm going to come. I…" He gave an inarticulate cry, his back arching

"It's okay," Harry panted. "Do it, let go, I've got you." He covered the head of Draco's prick again, making his tongue as stiff as he could before jabbing the tip into Draco's slit, massaging his prostrate without pause. 

Draco cried out, his back arching and his legs going rigid. He was clenched so hard around Harry's index finger he nearly pushed him out but Harry wouldn't allow it. He pressed his thumb against Draco's perineum and his index finger to his prostate, and Draco made a series of inarticulate, sobbing sounds as he came. 

Harry had forgot how much he loved this, feeling Draco let go under him, feel the flood of his salty/bitter come fill his mouth. He swallowed it all and sucked on Draco's prick until he whimpered at the sensitivity and pushed Harry's head off of him but held onto his hair, not letting him go far. Harry laid his head on Draco's thigh, realizing he'd come when he brushed the back of his hand over the wet spot marking to the front of his jacket. He lifted his head to glance down and muttered a wandless _Scourgify_ , vanishing the white ropes of come on his red jacket before he pressed his face back to Draco's thigh. He smelled of cologne, musk and sweat and come, and Harry moved his head and pressed his nose up under Draco's balls, inhaling deeply.

Draco gave a short yank on his hair. "What are you doing?"

"Smelling you. You smell spectacular, by the way."

"There is something so very wrong with you. No one's balls smell good."

"You're wrong. Just the smell of you could make me hard again."

Draco lifted his head to look down at him. "You came?"

Harry smiled slightly. "I did." He moved slowly up Draco's body, avoiding his orgasm sensitive cock even as Draco shuddered in after-shock. He kissed the springy, soft blond pubes and the spot just above them, then higher up. He paused just above Draco's navel, and Harry felt him stiffen as he pushed up the tails of Draco's white button down to study the tracing of spidery white scars that fanned out around his navel. Harry touched them delicately, reverently, his heart full. He recognized them; Ginny hadn't got any with either of the boys but made up for it with Lils, and she'd been profoundly pissed off. 

"Ugly, aren't they?"

Harry looked up to find Draco watching him. "Is that what you think?"

"Isn't it what you think?"

Unable to speak for a moment, Harry shook his head and pressed a kiss to the scars. He cleared his throat. "I think they're beautiful. They mean this body carried my child." Draco's belly was slightly softer than it had been when they were twenty-five, slightly rounder, and Harry loved it. "Are we going to talk?"

Draco sighed and pushed at Harry's head, lifting his hips from the floor to fasten his trousers. "I don't suppose we have an excuse not to." He sat up, running his fingers through his tousled hair. He looked embarrassed, and Harry was amused at the thought. 

"So why is it that the first time we're alone in a room, we're all over each other?" Harry asked, watching Draco's expression carefully.

"We're idiots?" Draco crossed his arms defensively. 

Harry grinned. "Possibly. Or maybe we just can't resist when there's an opportunity for us to put our hands on each other."

Draco snorted softly. "I would tell you not to kid yourself, but the evidence rather supports your theory."

"Doesn't it." Harry sat up beside him, attempting to press his hair flat. He doubted he succeeded. "Are you going to tell me … anything?"

Draco looked down, plucking at the fabric of his trousers. "What do you want to know?"

"When did you know?"

Draco sighed. "About two weeks after that last morning at the Corinthia."

"How is it that I never heard anything? No idle talk, no rumours. Nothing." 

"My mother, I imagine. She found a Healer in Switzerland who would perform a caesarean on a man. They aren't that common." He smirked wryly. "Hard to fathom, I know."

"What about your father?"

"He knew nothing," Draco said, his voice flat. "And fortunately, the old bastard died before Scorpius was two."

"And your wife?"

Draco slid him an irritated look. "What about her?"

"I gather she was…I don't know, Draco – what is the right word? Complicit?"

"Well, obviously she knew Scorpius wasn't hers. I think she thought we were involved in an illegal adoption, and she was delighted enough with her financial settlement not to care."

"Okay." Harry studied him. "How were you?"

Draco arched a brow. "How was I?"

"Yes, how were you. I don't know how else to ask what it was like for you."

Draco let out a short, unpleasant laugh. "How do you think I was? I was twenty-five, alone, and my married lover had just returned to his pregnant wife."

Harry grimaced. "I deserved that."

Draco sighed in aggravation. "Stop being so fucking accommodating." He ran an unsteady hand once again over his hair, one of his nervous 'tells'. "I was raised in a pure-blood home and knew about the curse, and I didn't believe it was actually possible. How could you have even imagined?" He looked pensively into the fire. "Okay, here is all of it in the proverbial nutshell; two weeks after you returned to Ginevra, I started vomiting in the morning. I honestly thought I was dying of some ostentatious tropical disease. Mother, on the other hand, thought I merely drank too much." The corner of his lips quirked up. "She wasn't wrong, but that wasn't why I was puking. Imagine the surprise of the family Healer when I turned up preggars. I had no idea what the fuck to do. Mother, however, got right on it. She paid off the Healer Draco had seen his entire life, just to guarantee his silence, found another in Switzerland with a clinic that catered to male pregnancies. She moved into a small boutique hotel nearby, and while I got sicker, and fatter, she went about securing a betrothal on my behalf. The story she told the Greengrass's was I had impregnated some pureblood girl whose family didn't want her marrying into the Malfoy line, and wasn't interested in her keeping the baby. Mother told Astoria we needed a mother for Scorpius so there wouldn't be any scandal attached to his name as he got older. Which wasn't so very far from the truth, after all." Draco rested his arm on his raised knee, his chin on his arm as he stared at the flickering flames. "Scorpius was delivered on October 15th, and I married Astoria two weeks later. All Astoria and her parents cared about was that she secured a sizable 'dowry' as it were, and they didn't much bother with why I looked like death warmed over."

"It was hard, then?" Harry asked tentatively.

"Yes, Potter, it was hard." He leaned back on his hands. "The male body isn't designed to grow a baby. There are – potions and anti-rejection drugs, which made me sick as a dog. At one point the Healer was very much afraid I was going to die and take him with me." Draco shrugged. "But, well… I didn't, and Scorpius was delivered at eight pounds, fourteen ounces, twenty two inches long. I had been miserable, and hated him and you and my mother, who wouldn't let me have the pregnancy terminated, and everyone and everything. And then they handed me this ugly, bald little creature, who opened these strange little eyes and looked up at me, and I fell quite hopelessly in love."

Harry knew the experience; he'd had it three times with Jamie, Al and Lils. 

"Does Scorpius know…"

"That he's yours?" Harry nodded. "No."

Harry looked down at his lap, unsure why that hurt as much as it did. 

"He does know that I carried him," Draco went on. "And that his 'mother' doesn't want anything to do with him, because she actually _doesn't_ have anything to do with him."

"He's never asked about his other -- parent?"

Draco gave him a wry look. "Of course he has. Do you think he'd have benefited from knowing the truth?"

"I don't know. What did you tell him?"

Draco looked away. "That I had an affair with a married man when I was twenty-five. That in combination with an ancient curse cast by one of his ancestors, and because his father is a raging queer, it resulted in him."

"Well, that's concise. And extremely cold blooded."

Draco gave him a raw look, then pushed to his feet. "I wasn't really in a position to be sentimental, was I?"

He turned his back and crossed his arms, and Harry climbed to his feet. He grabbed Draco's upper arms and turned him around.

"Don't do that."

"Do what?" Draco pulled free of Harry's hands, glaring. "Tell you the truth? Sorry, Potter, that's all I've got."

"No, not that you… stubborn, impossible – " When Draco would have walked away, Harry backed him into the mantle, bracing his arms on either side of his upper arms. Draco's poisonous scowl might've worked on someone else. It might've worked on Harry an hour before, but not now. "Don't turn on me and close me out again. Don't start calling me _Potter_ again. Dammit, Draco, we admitted not an hour ago that we love one another. I'm sorry I left that morning; sorrier than you'll ever know, but I won't tell you I'm sorry Lils was born! Are you sorry Scorpius was?"

Draco doubled up his fist and hit Harry hard in the right side of his chest. 

"Ouch. Dammit. I'm going to have bruises."

He really did feel a bit put out. Until he saw quite clearly that Draco was trying very hard not to laugh. 

"You're a menace."

"I'm so sorry, _Head Auror_. Are you going to arrest me for abuse?"

Harry reached out and grabbed hold of Draco's jaw. "No. I'm going to kiss you again, and again, until you stop trying to keep me at a distance."

He leaned in, doing precisely what he said he would. For the first few seconds Draco held his mouth stubbornly closed. But eventually, he sighed, and softened. 

"Don't bite my tongue," Harry leaned back long enough to warn.

"No promises, illustrious _Head_ Auror." A sly smile pulled at the corner of his lips. "You know, because you like to give – "

"I got it." He ran his hand gently down Draco's throat, over his Adam's apple. "Are you always going to be a pain in my arse?"

Draco shrugged, but Harry thought it was likely. 

"Will you listen to me, for just a minute, without interrupting me with snark?"

Draco crossed his arms. "No promises." They were so close the backs of his forearms brushed Harry's chest.

Harry sighed. "Okay, just…I know I walked away from you seventeen years ago, and if you must know, with the exception of the days Al and Lily were born, I've regretted it every moment since. I didn't plan to fall in love with you, Draco. It took me a while to admit to myself that I had; we were just screwing, after all. Right? But I do – love you, that is. I have. And I'd like the chance to get to know my son, and to spend time with you. But only if you find it…agreeable."

He finished awkwardly, very aware of Draco's steady stare. 

"You can't tell him anything about us, unless I agree first."

"Understood." Harry took a step closer to him, sliding his arm around Draco's waist. Draco hesitated, then lifted his arms around Harry's neck, taking a step into Harry's chest. Harry wanted to smile, but he held back. Just. 

"You know I'm not going to make this easy for you," Draco said.

"I never imagined for a moment you would," Harry agreed. 

"And in regards to Scorpius, you're going to have to earn every single concession. You may be his – sperm donor, but you don't have any legal rights."

Harry flinched, but nodded. "I know."

Draco stared at him for a long time. "All right, as long as you understand the rules, then…

"Then?"

"Then we can…see what happens."

Harry couldn't have stopped the smile that spread over his lips if he'd tried. He didn't. When he leaned in to kiss Draco again, he was still smiling against his mouth. When their lips parted, Harry ran his mouth down the side of Draco's throat. 

"So, do you think I can maybe take you on a date?"

Draco angled is head, sighing in contentment as Harry's lips settled just beneath his jaw in a spot Harry remembered Draco particularly liked. 

"Like, in public, where people can see?" 

"I was sort of assuming, yes."

Draco pretended to think about it. "Maybe."

Harry snorted. "Don't do me any favours."

Harry felt Draco's smile rather than saw it. He ran his hand down over Harry's arse, and a pleasant chill ran from Harry's shoulders to his toes. "As if I would," Draco murmured.

"As if you would." 

Their smiles met in a kiss.

After that, all was soft sighs and hard bodies pressed together from knees to shoulders, and the pleasure of reacquainting himself with Draco's mouth.

_Epilogue_

"Dad!"

"In here."

Draco sat at his desk, going over household accounts in the massive ledger Malfoy's had been recording financial reports in for the last hundred years. The difference was that instead of being the Lord of the Manor, Draco was the middle man who negotiated the best sales at market for the tenants who actually worked the farms that dotted the Malfoy lands. His father would turn over his grave.

The thought gave Draco immense pleasure. 

Scorpius appeared in the doorway, and Draco glanced up at him. 

"Hi, Dad."

"Hello, son."

Scorpius was in his second year at University and getting grades that would make any parent proud. He'd grown several inches after leaving Hogwarts, and Draco cringed when he realized he had to look up at his son now. He was also golden blond and handsome, and Draco felt a surge of delight every time he saw him. 

"What time are we meeting Harry and Al for dinner?"

Scorpius shrugged his rucksack from his shoulders, and it made a decided 'thump' when it hit the chair in front of Narcissa's desk, indicating heavy books inside.

"Seven." Draco closed the ledger and put the stopper in his bottle of ink. Harry tried to get him to use a fountain pen, but Draco liked certain things the old fashioned way. And his quills were a source of pleasure for him. "Which gives both of us plenty of time to get cleaned up. Although why we bother when both of them are coming from the Ministry, I don't know."

Scorpius plopped in the matching chair next to his books. "Oh, you know they'll at least shower," Scorpius said lightly. "So what do you think this is all about, anyway?"

"Not a clue."

That wasn't precisely true. Draco had a spy, (i.e. Pansy Parkinson) who had a friend who had a friend who worked for Dorsett's, the finest jeweller on Diagon Alley. She had waited on one Harry Potter when he purchased a matching set of platinum and yellow gold men's rings about a month ago. Draco was fairly certain the rings were going to make an appearance tonight at _Paradis sur terre_ , the French Creole restaurant that had opened across from Borgin and Burkes and was the talk of wizarding London. Harry had informed Draco of the reservation the weekend before, and he never, ever planned anything that far in advance. He'd also been a bit weird for days, edgy and jumpier than usual, and Draco knew him well enough now to recognize nerves when he saw them.

_To the shock of almost all of Harry's friends and many of Draco's, they'd been together for coming up on two years. They still didn't live together, (although there were two full sets of Auror robes and several ratty pyjama bottoms and tee shirts in Draco's armoire upstairs) but they rarely slept apart. Mostly, Harry was still getting his children, and his children's grandparents, used to the idea that he was in love with a man._

_The kids were actually handling it well. Scorpius and Al had known about it first. That came about as a result of another dinner, that one held at the Manor, just after Al and Scorpius aced their NEWT with perfectly brewed Polyjuice potion. The celebratory dinner had included an announcement by Harry, and he'd been a wreck then, too._

_"Scorpius," Harry said. "I've got something I'd like to tell you. Well, you too, Al."_

_Both of the boys looked up expectantly, and Draco slipped his hand into Harry's under the cover of the tablecloth. It was freezing, and he squeezed his fingers._

_"What is it, Dad?" Al asked as he popped a fried potato into his mouth. The boys had been in charge of the menu, hence the fish and chips detritus spread across his mother's fine damask table cloth. Draco thought she probably wouldn't have minded._

_"Uhm, seventeen years ago… actually almost eighteen now…" He stopped and took a deep breath, his gaze going from one boy to the other. Finally his eyes settled on Scorpius. "Scorpius, you know I'm in love with your dad, don't you?"_

_"I figured, sir." Scorpius said politely. Al giggled._

_"Well, I've been in love with him for a long time. Eighteen years, to be precise."_

_Draco squeezed Harry's hand again, linking their fingers. He watched his son's face, and saw the moment he figured it out. His eyes went very wide and he swallowed nervously. Al was figuring some things out as well; his eyes had narrowed on his father's face._

_"Dad, eighteen years ago, you were still married to Mum."_

_Harry bit his lower lip, but nodded solemnly. "Yes, son. I was."_

_"That was before I was born. Before _Lily_ was born."_

_"I know." Harry inhaled deeply. "I've never claimed to be a perfect person, Al. Your mum and I were…well, we had problems for a long time before we got divorced. I will never regret my marriage, because it gave me you and your brother and sister, but your mum and I really weren't very good for each other."_

_"No, you guys did fight all the time. And I know she's happier with Roddy than she was with you. Still, it's lousy to cheat."_

_Harry's face was the colour of the ketchup in the bottle sitting next to Albus's plate._

_"That's true," he said, sound strangled. "You're right about that."_

_"Dad?" Draco looked over at Scorpius, and saw his son had lost most of the colour in his face._

_"It's all right, Scorpius," he said with reassurance. "Just let Harry finish."_

_"All right." He looked to Harry, eyes so like Draco's own, so very wide. "Harry?"_

_Harry and Draco had requested of the other's son that they be on a first name basis nearly from the moment they'd begun seeing each other again. Harry looked at Scorpius now, and his smile was weak, but it was there._

_"I'm your dad, Scorpius. Your other dad."_

_"Wait." Al looked between them. "The two of you…so that means…?"_

_"Breathe, Al," Harry said mildly, his eyes still on Scorpius' face. He waited._

_Finally, Scorpius gave Harry a shy, secretly pleased smile. "Al, do you know what this means?" He turned to his friend, his smile widening._

_Al looked at him, and then the truth dawned. "Scorp!! You're my brother!"_

_They'd lurched at each other and into a back patting mess of a 'man' hug. When they turned to Harry, their reaction was more subdued._

_"Sir." Scorpius offered his hand and Draco's heart ached for him when he saw it trembling._

_Harry stood, setting his napkin on the table. He took Scorpius' hand and shook it, then pulled the gangly boy into a hard hug. Draco had to swallow the lump in his throat, and he blinked away tears he absolutely _would not_ let fall. He glanced over at Al and intercepted a sly smile. _

_"Good old Hadrian," Al said._

_Draco didn't have a response for that._

"I suppose I should wear a suit. _Paradis sur terre_ is supposed to be pretty fancy."

"So it is. I'll be wearing the Armani, if that helps."

Scorpius studied his father for a long time. "This place doesn't sound very 'Harry and Al' to me."

"No, indeed," Draco agreed. "Not a fish and chip or Quidditch tee shirt in sight."

Scorpius gave him a lopsided grin. "Are Jamie and Lils coming?"

Draco looked away from his knowing smile and dropped his quill into the drawer in the desk. "I believe they are, yes."

"So, if this is what I think it is, maybe I can tell them I'm their brother at some point?"

"I haven't a clue what you think it is," Draco lied smoothly, "and Harry and I have left that up to you. You know that."

"Yes."

And they had. After Harry's announcement at the Fish and Chips Extravaganza, as Draco had come to call it, they'd told the boy that information about his parentage was his business, and he could tell who he wanted, when he wanted. So far, the only ones who knew about it for sure were Al, Ron and Hermione, Ginny and Pansy, who had been threatened with death if she ever got chatty under the influence again. She'd been very apologetic. (Blaise thought he knew the truth, but Draco refused to confirm or deny.) Harry felt strongly that his ex-wife had a right to know, and she'd honestly been quite decent about it. More decent than he had any right to expect, and she and Draco formed a tentative friendship of sorts. 

As far as Ron and Hermione were concerned, it took Hermione longer to forgive Harry for cheating on Ginny than it had Ron. Now, they had dinner together at least once a month, and as Draco had agreed to sit on the Hogwarts Board of Governors once Scorpius graduated, he and Hermione met for lunch more often. He even agreed to teach advanced Potions as a guest instructor once in a great while, and was surprised by how much he enjoyed it.

"I guess I'll go ahead and shower." Scorpius stood up, looking at his dad with a lopsided grin.

"You do that." Draco attempted to ignore his knowing look as he continued to put away his stationary. 

"Dad?"

After putting away his wax and the Malfoy seal, and making sure he hadn't dropped any of the molten green wax onto the fine varnish of the top of the desk, he looked up, trying to keep his expression bland. "Yes, son?"

"I'm really happy for you. Both. You deserve to be happy."

His grin widened and he dropped his hands into his pockets as he left the room, whistling. 

Draco watched him go all of the way down the long hallway, until he disappeared into the Manor entrance hall. His off key whistling lasted just a few steps longer, then faded away. Once he was gone, Draco exhaled slowly, spreading his hands on the top of the old desk.

"Hear that, Mother?" he whispered. "My son thinks I deserve to be happy." He closed his eyes for a moment. "Isn't that an amazing thing." 

The light scent of night blooming jasmine floated around him, and it was almost as if she touched his face. Almost. 

With a slight smile, Draco stood and left the sitting room. The fragrance lingered behind him, then slowly faded away.

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please show the author your appreciation in a comment and by leaving kudos below. ♥
> 
> This story is part of the on-going and anonymous H/D Mpreg fest. The author will be revealed June 21st.


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